April 11, 2012 Who owns your Twitter bio at work? Social Media Share this post: Whose tweet is it, anyway? In December 2011, I wrote up the saga about Noah Kravitz (see the original post “Social Media Ownership” here) and the issue of who owns your social media profile while you are working for and/or representing a company or brand. It is a tricky question. In this case, Noah had built up a solid Twitter following while working at his company, SnoopDog; but, after he left, the company tried to reclaim his followers. There are a lot of particulars that make this case “unique;” but, it had the merit of bringing to the forefront this issue of social media ownership. In this instance, the update (via The Next Web) is that the courts have upheld the case and accepted SnoopDog’s claims. However, the case goes on. In the meantime, Noah gets to keep his 24K+ followers. Building up your social media credits There are a myriad number of elements that go into the building of a following. For example, the fan base may be a function of different ingredients, such as: the title and/or bio of the person the “karma” of the person and rapid-fire sense of humor the editorial line the notoriety of the brand for whom he/she works the media budget that allowed helped spur the awareness of the brand and/or account the offline network the role attributed to the person For some brands, they have clearly paved the way forward with specific handles (@usernameBRAND), such as with ComcastCares. Others have a brand name account (@Brand) that is managed by individuals who tag their tweets with their initials or other identifying marker (e.g. “^md”). But, for the vast majority of companies, there is a lot of predictable heartache about to happen regarding @ME accounts. Related to nominative accounts On a brand’s official Facebook page, the issue is not relevant. However, for other social networks where the profiles are those of an individual, including the LinkedIn or Viadeo professional profile, Google+, Pinterest, or an individual’s Facebook fan page (not the individual ‘personal’ profile), they could come under the same remit. It should be noted that the challenges are substantially different whether we are talking about the official handle for an SMB versus one of 100,000 employees in a large MNC. In either case, all the same, the issue needs to be addressed. My position on the matter is that, the very act of wanting to gain control of an individual employee’s social media profile is anti-philosophy. For an individual’s account, it is likely that the more liberty a person is given, the more potential for that person to gain a flourishing following, but also to make bigger mistakes. Good practice, in my opinion, would include a mix of the following: above all, circulating pre-established social media guidelines / rules that directly relate to this matter a brand charter that establishes who and how individuals will animate an official Twitter stream (logo/no logo as a profile picture, how the company is cited in the bio…) offering {voluntary} training for the staff accepting that errors will be made. BOTTOM LINE: The risk of losing a good employee is not as important as the fear of losing an individual’s Twitter following. It is a still untapped question. I would be most interested to have your opinions! NEWSletter Subscribe to Minter’s Bi-Weekly NEWSletter and receive a free copy of the exclusive and updated 8 Golden Rules of an eReputation Your Gift For Signing Up 8 Golden Rules of an eReputation SUBSCRIBE! You have Successfully Subscribed! business, leadership, noah kravitz, social media, social media guidelines, social media marketing, social media ownership, twitter handle Minter Dial Minter Dial is an international professional speaker, author & consultant on Leadership, Branding and Digital Strategy. After a successful international career at L’Oréal, Minter Dial returned to his entrepreneurial roots and has spent the last ten years helping senior management teams and Boards to adapt to the new exigencies of the digitally enhanced marketplace. He has worked with world-class organisations to help activate their brand strategies, and figure out how best to integrate new technologies, digital tools, devices and platforms. Above all, Minter works to catalyse a change in mindset and dial up transformation. Minter received his BA in Trilingual Literature from Yale University (1987) and gained his MBA at INSEAD, Fontainebleau (1993). His newest book Heartificial Empathy, Putting Heart into Business and Artificial Intelligence, bowed in December 2018 and won the Book Excellence Award 2019 as well as being shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2019. It's available in Audiobook, Kindle and Paperback. He is also co-author of Futureproof (Pearson, Sep 2017) and sole author of The Last Ring Home (Myndset Press, Nov 2016), a book and documentary film, both of which have won awards and critical acclaim. Minter has a new book on leadership, You Lead, How being yourself makes you a better leader, published by Kogan Page, that released January 2021. It's easy to inquire about booking Minter Dial here. View all posts by Minter Dial Previous post Next post
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