Dot.orgs on twitter: let your people do the “talking”

I wrote this spiel yesterday in response to a question — “Best practices for an advocacy group that is moving to a more conversational use of Twitter?” — on the wonderful Progressive Exchange listserv; thought I’d repost it here:

A common mistake I see institutions make on Twitter (and other social-web outposts) elsewhere is overreliance on a single, branded account. IPPNW twitter stream mentions that there “are about 7 of us ‘behind the account’” — my suggestion would be for each of those people to get their own twitter handle. And from there:

Be conversational and interactive as individuals, instead of as a brand. Staffers with twitter accounts can tweet their professional interests, carry on conversations, live-tweet from meetings/conferences, etc — and as actual people, instead of as an institution. Much better fit for the context.
Use the branded account chiefly as a “push” mechanism for institutional news (use RSS/twitterfeed where possible)
Also use the branded account to respond to @replies, to welcome new followers, and to redirect followers to interesting happenings in individual staffer twitterstreams.
Individual staffers can and should retweet news items from the branded account — when they are personally engaged in, or passionate about, a particular news item. Even more so when they can follow the RT of news item with additional details from an insider’s perspective, that sort of thing.

Bottom line, in my view, is that an institution can’t really keep up with the conversational demands of twitter (and other social media) if approaching it as a job for a marketing or communications staffer. On the other hand, fluency on twitter and in other social media contexts isn’t that hard a “core competency” to develop widely among staff — takes some guidelines, training, and ongoing coaching. And once your people get there, great things can happen.

UPDATE 1.8 1:20pm: One last thought — don’t worry much about what and how your staffers are writing tweets in their personal accounts; let them write awkwardly, with extreme wonkiness, about non-business-related matters, all that.
Another social media mistake is when the org’s “outreach” experts –
communications, marketing, membership — try to make everyone craft
polished “writerly” prose that a lay audience will understand.

Remember the “long tail,” and let each staffer write for exactly the
sort of reader they most want to be talking with. Let each staffer develop their own distinct network of followers, people that are drawn to the individual twitterstream exactly as it is. Be yourselves.
Flamboyantly. :-)

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