Kai Turner is head of Information Architecture at Agency.com – London.
When businesses open an account on Twitter, they must consider the right “Brand Voice.” One that is appropriate for what they want to say, and who they want to reach. This is a different sort of voice than the one companies have been familiar with in their traditional print and broadcast media channels, as it’s a more open and authentic form of communication.
While there is no established roadmap for launching a brand on Twitter, I’ve made some observations about some approaches to follow and pitfalls to avoid.
1. DO see it as a branding exercise
Companies already understand the importance of creating a strong brand identity for marketing and advertising. However, it is the expression of the brand identity that needs a new approach when working with Twitter.
Typically, when a company is planning a marketing campaign for broadcast, print or the web, the brand identity will have travelled from its conceptual and strategic origins through a process of formalization until it arrives as clear and well-defined guidelines to be put into a brief. This can be effective in carefully crafting a static piece of communication but, much like bringing a script to a dinner party, formal rules can’t be applied to casual conversation.
Instead, companies should return to an earlier exercise in developing their brand identity – that of describing their brand personality. These are the human characteristics of the brand. Many brands fall at the first hurdle on Twitter, which is, simply: sounding human. A company’s “Brand Voice” should reflect the personality traits of the brand. If your brand personality is meant to be “refined and sophisticated”, does it sound refined and sophisticated, or does it sound like a door-to-door salesman?
The Brand Voice of Starbucks is the voice of Brad, who posts on Twitter for them. Here he’s posting a picture of himself with some colleagues, just as any group of friends might do on Twitter.
2. DON’T imitate the voice of the community
What makes people interesting is that everyone is unique, and everyone has their own voice. Brands often go wrong on Twitter by thinking that in order to appeal to a certain demographic segment they need to somehow imitate that group. This is most obvious when brands go after the youth market and awkwardly pepper their language with outdated slang and a tone that is meant to sound ‘trendy’ or ‘urban’.
Companies make the wrong assumption– they believe that they need to wear a disguise in order to speak naturally to people. In fact, people want an authentic conversation with brands that speak as we would expect them to. People don’t want brands to be their friends, or to be overly familiar with them, but they do want a dialogue with brands whose products or services they enjoy using. Brands that feel the need to adopt a false persona, in some ways, are using it as a defense mechanism. After all, you can’t criticize the brand, you can only attack the false persona.
This post is both conversational, and informative. It’s what you would expect from Capgemini.
3. DO let it all hang out
The hardest thing for large companies to accept is just how exposed they are on Twitter. If there has been something negative in the press, your press conference begins as soon as the news breaks amongst the Twitterati. There is no time to prepare a statement.
Again, however, the rule is that the Brand Voice is a human one. And just as people have their own foibles, and make mistakes, a company on Twitter needs to accept its flaws, own up to them, and then it can begin repairing its mistakes. Hiding away from this conversation only makes matters worse, because then it becomes a one-sided argument without any representation from the company.
You can’t hide. Motrin had a PR disaster with their Motrin Moms campaign. The problem was only compounded by not having a voice on Twitter. In this example someone, pretending to be Motrin, continues to make jokes at the company’s expense.
4. DON’T just use Twitter as an RSS feed
The Twitter audience is a tech savvy bunch. They know how to read RSS feeds, so repurposing an RSS feed for Twitter isn’t adding value. You can post links to recent news and updates, but have a real person contextualize it. The link is interesting only if the person posting it is credible, and making a judgment call about what is or isn’t worth posting.
This Adobe developer posted about the product he’s working on, and since we’re getting a behind the scenes view of his work, it’s much more compelling than just having the link on its own.
5. DO define your communication channel
Before you can find the right voice, you need to know what it is you want to talk about. Is it a brand awareness and engagement channel? Is it a news and information channel? Is it a customer support and response channel? Each of these would need a different tone of voice.
DELL has over 20 distinct, and well-defined Twitter channels. Notably, the authors behind each account have been named so that a connection can be made with a real person.
6. DON’T just talk about products & services
Again, think of the real world. A person who speaks about one thing, and one thing only, is either incredibly dull or clinically insane. If you are passionate about your business, industry, products then share your passion. I was recently working on a project where I was told about a tech specialist who constantly improves the image quality of a camera lens. He could explain all the little details that go into creating a perfect image with such enthusiasm that you would be drawn into his world, and a topic you wouldn’t have guessed would be exciting– suddenly is.
Adam Denison, “A PR guy at Chevrolet,” talks about cars without always directly promoting Chevrolet products.
7. DO have a casting call for your Brand Voice
So you know what you want to say, and how you want to say it – but the biggest question is: who will be saying it? Most likely it will be someone from the marketing or the PR team. Maybe even a junior intern who has been given a list of things to post on Twitter.
A more successful tactic would be to find someone, internal or external to the company, who is already on Twitter and speaking naturally in a tone of voice that matches your Brand Voice.
An online travel agent or airline could benefit from having a serial traveler like the TwitchHiker working as their brand evangelist.
8. DO have a voice on Twitter, but first have a listen
If nothing else, big brands need to get on Twitter and start following people. Test the water. We don’t bite. Usually.
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