A few weeks ago, I saw a Twitter post from Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh about a Twitter-related problem his company is having. As we’ve written about before, Zappos loves Twitter and hundreds of its employees actively use the micro-blogging tool. Zappos has even built a micro-site that aggregates all Twitter messages that mention the company. The problem is that, in their enthusiasm for the tool, some Zappos employees began following any Twitter user that mentioned Zappos in one of their tweets (Note: following is the Twitter equivalent of a friend request on Facebook). According to Hsieh, this freaked some people out, as they felt that Twitter was sort of stalking them online as some sort of corporate policy. I’m not sure what Zappos ended up doing (let me know in the comments if you know).
For me, this situation really demonstrates how tricky using these social tools can be.
On a personal level, I’m happy to have anyone follow either my personal or our Bivings Twitter accounts. But my use of Twitter is 90% professional and probably 10% personal. I’m very aware that everything I write is viewable by the whole world and have no expectation of privacy. I want strangers to read what I write.
Others use Twitter in a much more private way, only following people they know in real life and using it primarily to talk to their friends. These types of users are going to get a little creeped out when strangers, and particularly strangers working at a company they buy shoes from, start following them out of the blue.
So how should companies go about adding followers on Twitter? How do you build a user base without making everyone think you are a stalker?
When we set up our Bivings Twitter account, I initially started following around 50 people through the account in an effort to get the ball rolling. In adding followers, I tried to follow people I’d met in real life, people I knew read our blog and/or people I was fans of. Just as importantly, I tried not to add anyone whose account looked to be used primarily for private conversations. I guessed this by seeing how many people they were following and, most importantly, what they were writing about. If they were using Twitter to share links and to add their two cents in on general discussions, I added them. If they were talking primarily about their kids and what they had for breakfast, I didn’t. I never followed people who have set their accounts to private. Since this initial burst, we’ve focused on adding people to follow organically as we come across them and aren’t forcing things. Slow and steady wins the race.
So I do I think it is possible (and desirable) for companies to build relationships on Twitter by following people, so long as they are sensitive as to how the person is using Twitter. Just like when reaching out to bloggers, I think you should familiarize yourself with a person before you try to engage them on Twitter.
But I also think this is new ground and feel the rules are sort of being written on the fly.
How do you feel about companies and individuals that follow you out of the blue? Does it creep you out?
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