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Right now I am about to embark on a social media campaign for a client. I'm pretty well versed in how to leverage social media (Twitter, Digg, StumbledUpon, etc) to gain traffic and awareness.

I do however have a question about how to best create profiles on these social media sites. Typically if I have a client, say XYV Corp.. I will go to these social media sites and build a profile under the name of XYZ corp, so my Digg username for example will be xyzcorp and will contain a link back to the XYZ Corp. website.

Recently I have seen many companies rather than use a corporate profile they instead have one of their employees create a profile under their own name (i.e. Joe Montana), so their Digg account for example will be joem, and it will have a picture of Joe. The profile usually will disclose that person works for XYZ Corp. or whatever company in question.

Considering I will be of course networking on these sites, adding friends, interacting with people, what do you feel is the best approach when creating these profiles. Should I create them as XYZ Corp. or as myself?

Thanks!

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3 Answers

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After thinking about this some more, I think you're going about this a bit wrong with creating and maintaining the social networking yourself.

The real added value of using social networking is a to create a dialogue with your customers on the channels which they are using most often. If XYZ Corp wants a Twitter profile simply as another advertising channel, they are just more noise.

What you should do is train someone at XYZ Corp to use Twitter and Facebook and the rest, and convince them that there is value in having an employee spending time on these sites interacting with customers. If you, as an outside consultant, are doing these activities, then it isn't genuine, and customers will quickly catch on.

Conclusion:

  • Create profiles on social networking sites under the name of the company.
  • Find someone in XYZ Corp's marketing or customer service department (Joe) and show them how to use these sites. Maybe set up a Hootsuite account (or similar) for them.
  • Put "Tweets by Joe Montana" or similar in the profile for each site.
  • Have Joe spend time on these sites each day, post content useful to the XYZ customer base, and search for people discussing XYZ, XYZ's industry, and XYZ's competitors and reach out to them.
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Great thoughts! I typically deal with strategy and analysis, so I don't do the daily social media "networking". My client has a employee that I will be working closely with who will being logging into these sites daily. Personally I'm still a bit torn between the approaches. As I stated before, in the past I have had companies set up profiles under their company name and 1-2 people usually manage it and reach out with it. Nowadays I just see so many companies instruct an employee to create a separate social media profile for themselves, but used solely for company purposes. – AAC Feb 21 '10 at 21:03
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Since it is for business purpose, you should create it under company name so that it will help create brand awareness. Another reason to separate your personal profile from business one on social networking/media sites is that sometime people share certain things on their personal profile that can put them into embarrassing situations.

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Very valid points, and also what happens when the person leaves your company? This is why I have always opted to show a "company" profile. But sometimes I think people would rather interact with another real person who works for the company or acts as a brand ambassador. I see it used so commonly now that is why I ask. – AAC Feb 20 '10 at 2:22
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From my experience, an idea is to set it up under the company name, but disclose in the profile who is digging, tweeting, posting, etc.

Bottom line though, is if it is your client and not you, you need to be aware of their needs and how they want to be reflected/represented by you.

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I agree, and would add to this that identifying the person doing the tweeting makes it less 'faceless corporation' and more personal. – Frederick Cook Feb 21 '10 at 1:31

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