Tweets and Twitter: Strictly Business or a Casual Mix?

This topic poses an interesting question: Should a business choose to include personal tweets in their business feed or does that cross some sort-of boundary?

Cynthia Boris wrote an interesting blog for the Internet Marketing News : Marketing Pilgrim called Do Personal Tweets Make You More Credible? that addresses this exact issue.

Cynthia's blog describes a study that was done with college students and professors where there was three control groups: students who received strictly education-related tweets, students who received only personal tweets, and students who received a mix of both. The results showed that the students who received only personal tweets perceived their professors to be most caring and genuine. She draws an interesting correlation between this and marketing, and the decision to include personal tweets in business feeds seems to be an appropriate decision as long as there is a professional balance maintained.

Twitter has become a phenomenon in this technical age for marketing, self-expression, and basically for any purpose. I found a Verizon commercial that emphasizes the importance of Twitter today and how applicable it is for everyone today.

From celebrities, to corporate CEOs, and even to parents, everyone appears to be "tweeting," and the Verizon commercial I found highlights this fact. Questions often arise regarding this new trendy social networking website's purpose and the answer can be tricky. On a professional level, it is up to PR managers, social media consultants, and marketers to decide how to handle the business's image on twitter.

All in all, after reading Boris's blog and formulating my own opinion, I'd say the best approach is a balanced one: a winning combination of both business and personal tweets to ensure your followers on twitter don't think you're a robot.

-Michelle