One major contributor to building a strong brand is consistency. In the social realm, this means consistent profile biographies, consistent tone of voice across all profile updates and interactions, consistent colors used throughout your website and social profile pages, and consistent imagery, too.
Or maybe not?
Maybe there’s 1 potential exception to the “consistency” rule. Particularly if you are a small business owner and are often seen as one in the same as your brand.
Last month I was reading a post by Ted Coine, co-founder of Switch and Shift. His post listed and explained 4 reasons why other Twitter users don’t follow you back. His second point discussed your Twitter avatar and explained how if your avi is a default egg image or a flashing graphic, chances are other users won’t follow you back. Ted also went on to point out that brands using logos versus an actual photograph face a greater challenge.
If you read through his comments, you’ll see a conversation between Ted and Kelly. I responded beneath their back and forth, stating that I agreed with Ted. I represent several brands online, and I can tell you that without a doubt, it’s much easier to get other Twitter users to follow back your account if you are using a photograph of the person behind the brand vs. the brand’s logo.
That’s not to say you can’t or shouldn’t use your brand imagery on Twitter (Full disclosure: We use one of our Eli Rose logos for @EliRoseSocial). And if your business is a co-owner situation, you may lean towards going the brand logo route vs fitting 2 or more faces into the tiny thumbnail allowed on Twitter.
But if you are facing some challenges with gaining new followers to your business account, it might be worth your time to dig up a nice photograph of yourself, and switch it out with your brand logo. Test it out for a few weeks while actively trying to engage those you follow and see if it makes a difference in your follower growth. Hopefully, the humanizing of your brand on Twitter will be what you need to get your small business Twitter presence growing.
As a consumer, do you find that you follow back brands as quickly as other individual users? For those small business owners, do you use a photo of yourself or your brand’s logo on Twitter?
Liz, thanks so much for your support – both on my blog and (especially) on your own! I’m very interested in what your readers tell you about their experience with this experiment, if they choose to undertake it. Please, keep me posted.
There is no better lab in the world than your own brand when it’s small, before too many stakeholders have their careers wrapped up in whatever status quo you end up creating for yourself. To me, that’s when things are most exciting! I hope your readers accept this challenge.
Best,
Ted
Thanks for stopping by and weighing in, Ted! Have a great weekend.
This is something I struggled with when setting up our HF twitter account. The fact that Eli Rose was using a logo gave me reason to go ahead with our logo.
But I do have a picture of Sue and I, I’ll switch it in and see how it goes.
I’ve felt our twitter growth has been pretty good with the logo so far.
I think that you and Sue each having your own personal presence first helps. I know we found that with Eli Rose. We never had to “drum up” followers or reach out to our personal networks and say, “Hey, please, please, PLEASE follow us over at @EliRoseSocial”. People tend to trust your new venture and will likely follow if they already trust you as an individual.
I rarely follow brands, the exception being if I know the owners of the company. I more often follow people.
I’ve also found that people don’t relate to my logo as much as they do my profile pic. In fact, I’ve had people come up to me at conferences because they recognized my Twitter avatar. It’s not possible to use a personal pic in all cases… but for me, I think it just lends a more personal appeal, and enforces the fact that there’s a real person behind the company.