Big, Bureaucratic Companies Aren’t Great at Twitter
Social media is a vehicle for snark and wit, something most corporations don’t do well.
Bloomberg, May 2, 2019
Quick, try to think of a corporation that does Twitter well. We’ll wait.
Time’s up. You didn’t, did you? The reason is because a company, almost by definition, can’t do social media. Oh, a few manage a decent tweet now and again. But Twitter is better suited for human conversations than corporate image-polishing.
This is because of the “social” in social media. The word itself almost tells you all you need to know, as defined by Merriam-Webster: “of or relating to human society, the interaction of the individuals and the group.” Note that corporate branding isn’t any part of that definition.
We were reminded of this earlier this week, thanks to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s now-deleted tweet that poverty shamed those who are broke.
Pity the unfortunate 20-something social-media worker at JPMorgan who was only trying to do the impossible: make a giant money-center bank look hip and appealing to millennials . . .
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I originally published this at Bloomberg, May 2, 2019. All of my Bloomberg columns can be found here and here.
