Friday, December 12, 2008

Brands on Twitter... ban or embrace?

First, let me say that "I Love Mashable." OK, now that I've gotten that out of the way on with the blog post.

Social media is about conversations. As the title of Robert Scoble's book, "Naked Conversations" implies, transparency is a key to the effectiveness of social media. This article from Mashable makes the argument that people have relationships with people therefore brand only twitter sites are just plain wrong.

http://mashable.com/2008/12/12/twitter-brands/

I agree and disagree. I agree that having a human face to a brand makes a brand more real. However, I also believe you can have a relationship with a brand. See the New Coke story for example. Taste didn't matter, the relationship with what came to be known as classic Coke was so strong that Coke killed the better tasting product. Twitter brand sites need to be careful though. Cold, marketspeak on Twitter is just plain wrong. I don't say ban it, but just know you won't be successful if you don't have real conversations.

Be real,

--Charles