What's the Face of Your Brand?

As companies start setting up accounts on Twitter, there are many strategic decisions to be made with regard to community management and the face of the brand. Who or what is the face of the company? Should your avatar be a human face or the company logo? Is there more than one face?

Olivier Blanchard outlines a pretty ideal approach to “The Avatar Question” and managing an enterprise Twitter presence in which he advocates setting up a branded account with the company logo, supported by staff accounts that feature a face along with branded imagery.

All companies are not enterprises, however, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.

To decide what’s right for your company, start by taking a look at some contextual considerations…

What is the primary goal of your Twitter engagement?
Who is your community and what is it that they want and need from you right now?
What are your competitors doing in this space?
Who will act as your community manager? Is this individual already a part of your community or is he/she a stranger?
What restraints do you have with regard to technical limitations and time to dedicate to social media?

Based on the answers to these questions, there are a variety of situations that might be a reasonable solution:

Use a company logo for your account, but have it socialize like a person.

The reality is, a community manager isn’t always the ideal face for the company brand, even if they are acting as the company’s voice. People can come and go. Roles change. So it often makes more sense to use the company’s logo for the avatar for your main company Twitterfeed, rather than your community manager’s headshot.

But, as Frank Strong mentions above, just because your community manager is talking as a brand, rather than a person, doesn’t mean your company feed should sound like a robot. As Frank says, “Businesses are people too, socialize like it.” I could not have said it better myself. Yes, that might be a logo on the avatar, but…there’s person sitting at a desk behind that logo. So make sure that humanity is showing through in your brand voice.

To help ensure that this happens, our company often recommends that the face behind the avatar also set up his/her own personal Twitter account, if they aren’t already an active user. This allows them to get a feel for the language and culture of Twitter as a person, and in the end, makes them a better community manager.

Use a company logo account, supported by highly-engaged staff accounts.

If your company leadership is already rocking Twitter with their own personal accounts, great. Then it may not be necessary to create a branded company account too (and doing so could be a strain on both the staff and the community.)

But don’t forget that there’s value in establishing a company account in Twitter simply for the purpose of owning your company’s in the Twitterverse. For example, for our company, Jennifer and I both have well-established Twitter communities connected to our personal accounts. So, our company KaneCoTweet account (which features our logo avatar) operates simply as a news feed for the company, directing followers to our personal accounts for engagement.

Use a C-Suite member’s personal account as the face of your company.

If you choose to have your company’s primary Twitter account feature a face instead of a logo, make sure it’s a face that has both a stellar personality and is of someone who is going to be around for the long haul:

If you decide use a member of your C-suite as the voice of your company, make sure that you choose someone who can speak to your company’s history, present and future with style and grace. Most importantly, this person need to actually enjoy tweeting, since their passion for the medium will bleed through in their tweets.

How are you managing the avatar for your company? Logo, person, or combination therein? What’s working (or not working) for you?

What's the Face of Your Brand?

by Kary Delaria

What's the Face of Your Brand?

Use a company logo for your account, but have it socialize like a person.

Use a company logo account, supported by highly-engaged staff accounts.

Use a C-Suite member’s personal account as the face of your company.

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