Should other people Tweet on your behalf

Posted on by Mark

Should other people tweet on your behalf

It is very true to say, that everyone is entitled to utilize Twitter exactly as they wish.. I have no issues with that. However, like everyone else, I am free to give my opinions and my views.. And in my view, If you dont have the time as an individual to tweet or to utilize people within your business to tweet about your business, then I am totally against you outsourcing that to other people…

The Individual…..

In my view,one of the greatest things that Twitter allows you to do, is to tell us who you are, not just what you do. When the business is effectively you, then its great for you to share with us, more about your hobbies, your issues, your opinions on all sorts of serious and not so serious issues… all this makes to differentiate you from others… Now when you as an individual,outsource this.. Whoever you have asked to tweet on your behalf, cannot engage with people like you, does not know your business like you, and cannot answer questions about you…. All they can do is broadcast simple messages about you…. To me, that is simply not what Twitter is all about….

Two good examples of the good and not so good are Duncan Bannatyne and James Caan  both of Dragons Den Fame…Now here are the screen shots taken of the two accounts on Mon 30th Aug 2010 at 5pm… Duncan in my view is Tweeting himself.. You can ssee that by the number of @replies he makes… Now you may not agree with his views, but at least he is taking the time to respond..

James on the other hand is not responding at all.. No @replies… So in my view, he is not Tweeting. He has outsourced his Twitter account to be managed by his media people. All they therefore tweet about is simply braodcasting what he is doing.. Ask him a question, comment on something, and I doubt you will get a response.. As he in my view is not taking a blind bit of notice of what you are saying.. He is not listening, and he is certainly not engaging with anyone…

Businesses…..

The same would apply to a businesses. In my view businesses, if they decide to set up a Twitter account, then they need to find the most paassionate people about their business, and then train & support them so that they can utilise some of their time to Tweet about the business, answer questions, find customer issues, and deal with them etc… Again in my view to outsource this, is a terrible mistake.. No outsider can really know your business as well as you do.. And they simply cannot listen, engage, comment and nurture the same sort of relationships as people within your business…..

So What….

Well, in my opinion, Twitter is not a broadcast station, but a communication channel. Embrace that, and you will over time create great advocates, convert poor customer service experiences into a better business from you.. You can start to utilise the amazing resource at you fingertips in the sense of market research and ideas.. all incredibly valuable.. Miss all that, and you miss out on to me what is the real essence of Twitter….

So.. let me know what you think.. Am I wrong? do you agree or disagree with me.. I welcome your comments….

  • steven healey

    Mark

    As far as I can see a fair percentage of James Caans tweets are in relation to promoting charities , some about events he sponsors and of course Dragons Den

    Duncan is gregarIous , he enjoys the banter , has exchanges with fellow ‘celebrities’ and the public alike , as does @dragonjones Peter Jones .

    I sense that James does not need any interplay on Twitter.

  • http://www.talkhealthpartnership.com Deborah Mason

    Mark – as you know I’m one of your greatest fans. I’ve learnt alot from following you on Twitter. But on this topic I have to disagree. Whilst I do agree that Twitter needs to be interactive and those tweeting need to be able to respond, in real time, to the comments and questions of other tweeters, I don’t think this precludes people from twittering on behalf of others. The key to twittering on behalf of others is to know enough about the business you are twittering on behalf of (ie be in the same space or same industry) and know enough to be responsive and answer questions and queries.

    At TalkHealth we successfully deliver succinct, key messages on behalf our clients, where we can interact with other tweeters, answer their questions, and point them in the direction of more information. Some company policy prevents employees from using Twitter. Therefore, the next best option is to embrace the knowledge, commitment and passion of a third party to work on their behalf. We have done so, and are doing so successfully. It boils down to a tight brief, regular monitoring and feedback to the client, and enthusiasm.

  • http://www.markshaw.biz Mark

    Hiya Steven..you have slightly missed the point.. James is simply broadcasting.. Not engaging with anyone.. In my view his account is not being run by him.. It is being run by a media agency.. Thats why there is no engagement… As they dont have a brief to discuss that….. thats my point…. I applaud that he does so much for charity….. Mark

  • http://www.markshaw.biz Mark

    Hiya Deborah.. thanks for taking the time to respond.. As i mentined at the beginning of this article, these are my opinions and views.. and yes how each of us utilise Twitter is for us to decide….

    You have stated that you Tweet for others, but that you also have a tight brief, learn a lot about the client etc… I appluad all of that, however, there is another issue…

    The company that you are tweeting for, never moves forward… they never learn how to tweet, how to engage, how to listen, how to grow a community, etc…. They are reying on you… You may well do a fab job…. But one day, you may also decide that you no longer wish to profide this service…. What now… The company cannot simply leave where you have left off…. They have not been trained to do so……

    So, I am going to disagree with you… In my opinion, it is a much better long term strategy for companies themselves to train their people to tweet about their business…

  • http://www.mattchedit.com/Blog.aspx Matt Chatterley

    Mark,

    Have to say I agree strongly – to “tweet” is to engage – for me the point is that we can interact with our audience as well as broadcasting messages to them in a quick/easy fashion.

    Even tweeting on behalf of a business, I think personality (and personability – not a real word but maybe should be) is critical – people don’t want to interact with a robot (and won’t).

  • http://www.markshaw.biz Mark

    thanks Matt for the response…

  • http://www.accelerated-training-consultancy.co.uk Beverley

    Mark, I agree with all you have said. However, where you probably see twitter positively, I am becoming more sceptical as time passes.

    I have only been using twitter for about five weeks. I have done a lot of reading and had some training on the uses and etiquette. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that on the whole it is one big sham. Many people say as you do that it is a ‘communication channel’ not a ‘broadcast channel’. As a concept that’s great and that’s how it’s sold, but I think in many instances that is not the reality,.

    It’s interesting that you use the Dragons Den as an example – becuase I follow Peter Jones. Although he is clearly answering himself it’s on a limited basis. Eg. He asks a question – you respond and you get nothing back – not even a general one that says ‘Thanks for all your replies’. There are a lot of people like this – who appear to be engaging, and are very amusing, but is not much more than self interest.

    There are a large number of people who just spend all their time promoting what they’re doing or sending out endless soundbites to which I now want to send a very rude reply to. There would be no point because they don’t actually engage and they won’t care.

    Then there are the people who look like they engage, but don’t really – or they do with their own special clique. Oh how difficult it is to break into that clique. An example of this is someone who has described the awful time they are going through with their health – hospital appointments – operations – the lot. Along side that they also talk about their work. You think you have been engaging along with other people and one day it’s obvious they’re struggling and so you send a message – how are you? Nothing. Okay – so perhaps they’re feeling ill, and yet you notice that they are clearly interacting with other people. Talk about feeling snubbed. Of course this happens in all walks of life – so I shouldn’t be suprised that it is replicated here.

    People are very busy and you are aware that they do not have the time to make endless inconsequential remarks but the lack of engagement can be very dispiriting.

    So are there any positives? Yes there are. There are lots of people like you Mark who are great – informative and friendly. I have been offered free and useful information from all sorts of sources along with a lot of garbage. I’ve had a couple of great discussions over a couple of controversial topics which I have thoroughly enjoyed. As yet I haven’t started to promote my own businesses – so whether it will help me there I have no idea, but it’s interesting to see how other people do it.

    I will continue to try this form of communication as it is clearly popular. As a communication skills specialist I need to understand and experience it. However, I remain a healthy sceptic – recognising some clear benefits, but not believing that it works in the way that many of the social media experts and others would have us believe.

    Looking at the length of this comment in comparison to everyone elses it’s not difficult to see that my favoured form of communication is actually letter writing!

  • Jonathan snow

    You making alot of assumptions, Duncan Bannatyne may well have other people tweeting for him just because he replies and interacts could just mean he has some great people working for him. On the other hand James may well be tweeting for himself and not bothering to interact. You are making assumptions here if I were James I would ask for my money back and maybe hire Duncans people.

    Anyway everyone is free to use Twitter as they wish, if James wants to broadcast let him do it!

  • http://www.markshaw.biz Mark

    Hi Jonathan, and yes for this article I have made assumptions.. however my gut feel is that I have it correct.. Yes James may well be using Twitter poorly.. and yes maybe he could benefit from some training… And yes.. I have already made the point that everyone is free to use Twitter as they wish…

  • http://www.markshaw.biz Mark

    Wow Beverley.. what a response.. did you have a strategy in mind when joining Twitter.. most dont, thats why things are so porr for them, and they usually blame Twitter…

  • http://www.accelerated-training-consultancy.co.uk Beverley

    Hi Mark – Suprisingly enough – I have got a strategy – and the first part of that was to watch and listen, which is what I have been doing. I’m not blaming Twitter – I am just intrigued that my experience is yet to match what a lot of people say about it. Now I’m open to that changing and I shall continue to use it as part of an overall tool to engage with people, but in the meantime I remain sceptical about how much genuine engagement there is compared to the number of users and the vast volumes of traffic.