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Three Challenges When Managing A Twitter Alter Ego

Posted by on 8th Oct 2009 Blogging 5 comments

Twitter logoHow many Twitter accounts do you have? I have three. Like most people I started with a single account for my own personal use. That’s the one that’s linked at the end of this article and it’s still my major one. But about a year ago, one of my clients asked me to create and manage a Twitter account for him, and that’s where some of my challenges started.

Finding Stuff To Tweet About

With my own Twitter account it was never a problem to find stuff to tweet about. I’m reasonably active on the site, read a lot of blogs in my field and other areas of interest and have a core group of interesting people to follow. When it came to tweeting for my clients, I had to start from scratch. While I was interested in the topic of travel, I wasn’t as plugged into it as I was into the writing field. To address this, I:

  • subscribed to a Google Pack on travel to see which blogs I found interesting. Over the weeks, I gradually deleted those that didn’t appeal.
  • Looked at lists of the top travel blogs to find blogs I could follow
  • Used Twitter search and other search tools to find people who were posting about travel related keywords
  • Found travel bloggers through JustTweetIt
  • Subscribed to press updates in the field so I could keep on top of travel news

Updating The Account

Once I had a second Twitter account, I also faced the issue of how to update it easily while still managing my original Twitter account. Logging in and out of each account was quite unsatisfactory, so I went through a range of tools designed to allow you to manage multiple Twitter accounts. Mashable’s got a great list of applications for managing multiple Twitter accounts.  Here are some of the web apps I have tried.

  • Tweetlater (now SocialOomph) – this worked well, allowing multiple account management, keyword tracking, scheduled tweets and more
  • Seesmic Web – This app made it really easy to manage multiple accounts, but did not include scheduling
  • Brizzly – though perhaps not the best for business (no analytics and no scheduling), Brizzly does allow draft tweets and has a killer feature in letting you temporarily mute people who are tweeting on topics that don’t interest you.
  • Hootsuite – perhaps the best of the lot, Hootsuite allows multicolumn view, scheduling tweets and, most importantly for business, URL tracking and analytics via its ow.ly system

A key function of any useful Twitter web client is the ability to segment your followers into groups. The business account I run has 50 per cent more followers than my personal account, which makes it a challenge to engage with everyone. Grouping makes it easier to keep up with the people you are most connected to.

Being Someone Else

The most challenging part of running a Twitter account for a client is being someone else. I’ve always found that being myself is the best way to engage blog readers and microblog followers, but microblogging for a client forces me to tweet about what they would consider important. I am always conscious that I am representing someone else. I am still myself, but an edited version of myself, as I focus on my client’s priorities rather than my own.  What challenges have you found when blogging for business?

Sharon Hurley Hall is a location independent freelance writer and blogger. As well as here you can find her posts on Get Paid To Write Online, PiggyBankPie and Appvita.

5 comments - Leave a reply
  • Posted by Shmel on 8th Oct 2009

    I think you must always be yourself. Even on Twitter. People like individuality, not only a unique content and millions of followers. I use twitter for my own and i like it.

    • Posted by Sharon Hurley Hall on 12th Oct 2009

      I am always myself, Shmel, but I don't talk about the same things, so I censor myself a little. I am still me though :)

  • Posted by Raj on 9th Oct 2009

    yes Shmel , i appreciate what you have commented , still post is really good !!

  • Posted by Wahyu Bhaskoro IT Go on 10th Oct 2009

    Since twitter is not familiar in my country, i only have one account