You Are What You Tweet

Many CEOs and other executives are joining the Twitter world. Some have thousands of followers. 

While Twitter is a powerful influencer, misuse, a.k.a. “mis-tweeting,” can turn customers off to the brand and/or the company. So . . .

- Share tweets that are informed and authentic. The IT department shouldn’t tweet for the CEO.  Consumers can sniff out a fake.

- Don’t have “Twitter strategy meetings.” Executive tweets should feel off-the-cuff and spontaneous, yet controlled and interesting. 

- Don’t tweet on the defensive. Twitter can be used to quickly quell a problem; however, the voice shared needs to be thoughtful and not about transferring blame. 

- Don’t tweet negative, poorly written thoughts or emotions about the competition, colleagues, or the media. Those same tweets will travel faster than the speed of sound and will come back to haunt you for a long time.

Twitter can be an incredibly valuable tool in brand building. It is simply a question of using the right tools at the right time in the right tone.

Mashable: (http://mashable.com/2009/08/25/whole-foods/) offers up the following lessons for tweets when it looked at the CEO of Whole Foods John Mackey's uneven dance with Twitter:

- Make content increasingly relevant
- Go where consumers are
- Loosen control from the top
- Decide what channel to use for what purpose
- Let the conversation happen

www.247wallst.com examined his topsy turvy tweets further:  http://247wallst.com/2009/08/25/brand-image-did-mackey-really-hurt-whole-foods-wfmi/ “Whole Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ: WFMI) has been under fire of late from outside groups, although this time it is not over the founder’s secret web posting, not over a merger and antitrust issues, and not over high prices leading to name ‘Whole Paycheck.”  It is almost daily now that one group or another is attacking CEO and founder John Mackey over his editorial opposing President Obama’s healthcare reform. Mackey also recently admitted that much food is processed and rubbish or ‘junk’ when addressing some of the items sold at stores when considering his new health kick.  He has even joked about ‘bribing’ some employees to lose weight.” 

Or this recap from http://industry.bnet.com about how the PR executive at Ketchum embarrassed his client when he used his Twitter account to insult Memphis, the hometown of client Fedex, the morning before he was to meet with them there. The tweet was copied to Fedex’s marketing management, and a predictable round of corporate apologizing followed. Here’s a summary of what happened, when it happened, and who noticed.  http://industry.bnet.com/advertising/1000525/worst-twitter-post-ever-ketchum-exec-insults-fedex-client-on

Even the UK's Daily Telegraph covers the pitfalls of Twitter if you don't know what you are doing,...http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/5250680/Top-10-worst-tweets.html:

Twitter mistakes: Top 10 worst "tweets"
Twitter, the microblogging phenomenon that’s got everyone hooked from Stephen Fry to Britney Spears, can sometimes lead to big gaffes – as MP Sion Simon found out the hard way.

If you don't want to end up on the Twitter "walk of shame,” be thoughtful about what you say and make sure you do your homework.