How personal tweets can help your brand seem more genuine.
I read an article from Ars Technica earlier this week that really got me thinking. It was about a study done at Elizabethtown College about how adding personal tweets to your business Twitter feed can affect your credibility. Most people would think that business accounts should be just that – business accounts. That’s understandable, as we’re used to keeping the two arenas separate. Personally, I’m more in favour of mixing things up. As a reader, I know I’m more engaged when all the serious talk is broken up with a bit of humour. So what do you do?
The study took three groups of students and gave them each access to a professor’s Twitter feed. One group had access to only scholarly tweets, one group only saw social tweets, and the third group saw a mix of the two. The students were then instructed to rate the credibility of their professor. The results were pretty interesting.
Turns out, the group that only saw the social tweets gave a higher credibility rating to the professor than either of the other two groups that were exposed to the more serious content. Are you surprised? I’m not.
When people are connecting with your company on social media, they want just that – a connection. By adding some personal messages in (links to viral videos, random silly thoughts, etc.) your brand seems less corporate and more personable. They aren’t talking to a robot, they’re talking to a person. You have to treat social media just like you would treat a face-to-face interaction. Would you just stand there and spout off facts, or would you be charming, funny and yet still professional?
Just something to think about the next time your finger hovers over the send button while you debate posting that super-hilarious cat-on-a-Roomba video.
