Back in March I wrote about a potential framework for how different brands use Twitter. It’s a simple 2 x 2 matrix. On the X-axis I separate out brand and personality centric accounts – basically whether it’s a “real” human or a company / logo. On the Y-axis I separate out broadcast and conversation centric accounts, using “% of @reply messages” as a proxy for conversational activity.
I’ve continued to use this as high-level lens for looking at how companies are using Twitter, and I find it very useful. One of the main messages that derives from repeatedly doing the analysis is that while many people argue the RIGHT way to use social media is to have people-driven conversations, I believe that there are merits to each of the four approaches. To that point, today I thought I’d cover four different accounts that are the “main” faces of different brands on Twitter – each with over 1 million Twitter followers, and each residing in a different quadrant of the matrix. These four are @WholeFoods, @padmasree, @zappos, and @woot.
@Wholefoods: I’ve talked about Whole Food’s presence on Twitter before (including all the different accounts they use, scattered all over the matrix), and it really is a remarkable story. At last count the main account has over 1.4 million followers, good for the #43 spot on the Twitterholic rankings. It’s obviously a branded account – company logo, providing “fresh organic tweets from Whole Foods Market HQ in Austin TX.” And if you scan the messages, you’ll quickly see what I mean by it being conversational – almost every single message is an @reply to someone. Great example of how you don’t necessarily need a “human face” to have a conversation. @JetBlue is another great example of this – though they do provide 5 names in the bio.
@Woot: I mentioned Woot.com recently as an example of a company using Twitter for nothing more than broadcasting sales messages – one tweet a day, highlighting the daily product that’s on offer. Many people seem to argue this is totally the wrong way to use Twitter, but at last count they had just under 1.4 million followers, good for #53 in Twitterholic. In short, broadcasting sales messages can work in certain circumstances. @amazonmp3 is another great example.
@padmasree: I stumbled upon this account when pulling together a customer Twitter presentation for Cisco a few weeks ago. For those that don’t know her, she is the CTO of Cisco – and has 1.1 million followers, far more than any other Cisco account, good for #112 on Twitterholic. Scan her account, and you can see how incredibly active – and conversational – she is. @Agent_M (comic writer for Marvel) is another great example here.
@Zappos: Zappos – rightfully – gets a lot of press about their effective use of social media across the enterprise. But there are a few things I rarely see noted. First, the main account is handled by the CEO (Tony Heish), and it has FAR more followers than all of the other Zappos accounts combined (1.4 million, good for #51 on Twitterholic) . Second, he only updates it a couple of times a day, and when he does it’s generally to broadcast a particular piece of information (a quote, a picture, what he ate – whatever). It clearly stands out from the far more conversational accounts like @padmasree, @chrisbrogan, etc. While far more active, @mashable uses it’s main account in a similar, broadcast type way.
So there you go – four different accounts that are the “main face” of different companies on Twitter, and each is extremely successful. Which approach is right for the main face of your company, and all the other accounts that might be affiliated with it, all depends on two big questions – what your customers want, and what makes sense for your value proposition.
