How to pick department Twitter Accounts

Image via CrunchBase

So, I wrote two posts on very much the same topic today. One on KDKA being on Twitter and the other on WPXI being on Twitter.

Did you notice the differences though?

There was something that struck me right away about the way each station is handling it’s Twitter accounts.

WPXI has non-personal Twitter accounts set up that their staff use – no personal names at all. KDKA has personal accounts set up for each member of the team.

There is good and bad in being personal in circumstances like this.

What if – Heaven Forbid – Jim Lokay were to leave Pittsburgh. We’d all have to follow whoever took over Traffic and Transportation at KDKA. Not exactly a seamless transition.
Followers would be lost, business cards updated, addresses changed, sites changed etc. Heck, Jim could even keep tweeting ‘on behalf of’ even after leaving if he so desired

With a ‘department’ account things are a lot less personal but more manageable. Assuming passwords were managed an account can be tweeted from by any number of people and should a person take a day off or move on it’s easy to pick up and continue. There is more control in a department account.

There are normally corporate policies that dictate group email addresses (i.e central Customer Service, billing or support), accounts etc. Of course it’s up to how you’d like to represent yourself, the department and how transient your staff is.

It’s a lot to consider either way.

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