Please Blog Responsibly: What Your Tweets Say That Your Blog Does Not

Repeat after me:

I am a brand.

I am a brand.

I am a brand.

Just like Nike, Apple, Under Armour, or the Mom and Pop deli down the street, you are your very own unique brand. As a blogger, the sum of our branded parts is usually 1) your blog, 2) your Facebook page, and 3) Twitter. To sell your brand, you must be mindful of that brand and portray yourself through these platforms.

You are a brand. Own it, respect it, and don’t abuse it.

Even if you don’t subscribe to the “my blog is a business” school of thought, you are pimping yourself out just like any other business does. Every part of your brand presence matters. Your blog content matters. The updates that you post on Facebook matter. And yes, even the words that you Tweet matter.

Last month, Carrie Nickerson, the owner of a new cupcake shop in Raleigh, NC, quickly found out that Passive-Aggressive Tweeting (PAT) could cause a whole lot of trouble for her brand. When a customer contacted her via email to complain that she found the shop’s slogan (“So Good It Makes Fat People Cry”) offensive, Carrie gave her a piece of her mind both via email and through Twitter.

As a result of her PAT, Carrie found herself amid a public relations nightmare, and tried desperately to back-pedal with a public apology on the company’s website. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done. Deleting her Tweets and making the company’s Twitter profile private (post-PAT), did not erase the fact that she possessed a negative image of her own customers. It seems to me that calling her customer a “fat c*nt” was probably a bit of a turnoff, and could potentially hurt future business.

Twitter pages are not the place for a company to call their customers names and to imply that they are innately flawed. On the same token, Twitter is also not the place for bloggers to passive aggressively tweet their dissatisfaction with a reader comment, bitch about a fellow blogger, or talk badly about another website in an encrypted fashion. Your readers are your “customers,” and other websites and website owners are your “colleagues.” We might be “just” bloggers, but the same professionalism as one would show in the workplace should be followed in the blogplace.

I’m no expert, but there are a few basic guidelines that I follow:

• Don’t Tweet anything that you wouldn’t say to someone’s face or post as a comment on their blog.
• If you feel like you might experience an emotional outburst, step back, count to 10 (100 if you’re really upset), and regroup.
• After regrouping, if you feel that you still need to address the issue, consider making the topic a full post on your blog.
• If an emotional outburst via Twitter is absolutely necessary, do so in a way that is not passive-aggressive.
• If possible, go directly to the source and address the issue.
• Don’t engage in PAT, realize how it makes you look, delete the snarky Tweets, and think that no one saw them.

I’m guilty of it too. I’ve Tweeted bitchy things about friends turned foes, and although I didn’t delete the Tweets, I wished in hindsight that I never acted so childish. Our reader “customers,” fellow blogger “colleagues,” our friends, family, and foes read our Tweets. Even if the Tweet is deleted, it still happened, and others have already read your true feelings.

I am not suggesting that everyone conduct their blog ‘public relations’ as if they are that of a large corporation. I’ll always Tweet-complain about traffic and sweat, how under-trained I am for a race, and the fact that I don’t feel like working out on any given day. That is innately the person that I am, and that is what my blog is all about.

My best advice is to always keep it real. Your reader “customers” are constantly watching and listening, even when you don’t think they are. If you have a problem with something or someone, put on your big girl panties and speak up. Be direct and mature. Use your words — it’s what you’re best at!

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Tagged as: Elisabeth, Please Blog Responsibly, Twitter