How MarketingProfs Manages Its Brand on Twitter (an Ann Handley Interview)

By Michael Stelzner
Published January 27, 2010

In this video I interview Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer for the 358,000 member organization MarketingProfs.

Ann talks about how she manages being the public face on Twitter for her organization. She also shares how her own Twitter strategy has evolved over the last 2 years.

In this video Ann also discusses the challenges of having employees represent your brands on social media and how to approach social media policies.

This video contains many great tips for businesses using social media. Here are some of them to listen for:

  • How Ann mixes business and personal tweets on Twitter
  • Why businesses struggle to humanize their brand 
  • Why it’s important to identify your goals for social media and to put bumpers in place
  • How to set social media policies that work
  • Why employees represent their business in a wider environment today and how this impacts the hiring process
  • How social media beginners should start by wading in and listening before they speak

Be sure to check out the Marketing Profs blog and website where you can find an overwhelming amount of marketing resources, including a Social Media ROI Case Study collection.

What takeaways do you have after listening to Ann? What’s your experience of Twitter? How does your social media policy work for your company? Please share you comments below.

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About the Author, Michael Stelzner

Michael Stelzner is the executive editor of Social Media Examiner, author of the Social Media Marketing Industry Report, and author of the book, Writing White Papers. Other posts by Michael Stelzner »

 
 
  • Rory
    Have to completely disagree with Chris - I work for a big NGO and a lot of the misunderstanding of social media within the organisation comes from many of the issues being discussed here - do you manage a social media presence? And how best do you mix the personal with the organisational messages? So it's great to hear an interview with someone who does it successfully and how they've sold those problems.
  • Pat
    I'm starting my copywriting business this year, and have felt overwhelmed by social media. I just listen and bide my time until I have something of substance to ask or contribute. So Ann corroborated my general response to the plethora of social media out there.

    I liked her thoughtfulness and measured way of speaking.

    And I want to add that you're getting better at producing the videos. Nice close-up of Ann (perfect), and this works better for me, putting all the focus on the interviewee. I didn't much like seeing the interviewer and interviewee standing and holding mics. It felt distant and awkward. Now you have a nice intimacy with your video, and your viewers all know it's you, Mike, doing the interview. I think it works much better. Great job!
  • Thanks Pat! Just so you know I was in Chicago without my camera crew and that is why the style was a bit different. You'll see a mix of both types of video moving forward. All my best! - Mike
  • Hmmm....well I just have to disagree with Chris. I found this video very informative. The biggest take away I got relates to what Anne was saying about humanizing the social media marketing experience and listening before you leap. Listening to this discussion really set a tone for me, not just for Twitter but all my social media marketing. I have struggled to find a balance and this entire discussion was perfectly balanced. Anne and Mike were both personable, they both gave great information (love the description of Best Buy's strategy), it was real (e.g. Anne's reference to her kids).

    I don't think I would have gotten as much out of this if it were just a paragraph summary. This video, in my mind demonstrated what it was explaining. But for those who just want that bullet point brevity, there was the summary. Dull but informative.

    So, sorry Chris, but I think you missed the whole point.
  • Believe me, I know some people are visual learners, Mike. But please, don't suggest watching a talking head is "visual learning". The video is mildly interesting because you can see what the author looks like, but it does pretty much squat in terms of aiding actual understanding of the concepts at hand. Don't get me wrong; as I said, I generally love your content and have no interest in getting into a verbal sparring match with you over this particular video. My complaint applies to any free web-delivered content that appears to reflect an editorial bias toward glib posts designed to serve the demands of publish quantity/frequency (for the sake of SEO / traffic maximization) over quality and brevity. It's everywhere and a sign of the times. I just wish more online marketing publishers tried harder to honestly communicate clearly as opposed to publishing with a mind toward "getting traffic". I realize this is surely an unrealistic wish, but I can't help it.
  • This is a beautiful blog. This particular video is pretty lean on real info, though. I hate it when Social Media study wastes my time, which (unfortunately) is pretty often. Consider what you're trying to tell users and how to do so efficiently. The useful contents of this video could have been condensed into one small paragraph, which amounts to the written summary, which is not very illuminating. The written summary implies these things are actually elaborated on in the video, which they really aren't. You're as good as it gets out in SMM-land, but there's room to improve....
  • Chris,

    Realize different people digest content differently. Some are visual learners and other prefer text.

    Be sure to check out some of other videos, I think you will agree that they contain rich content.

    See http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/category/vid...

    Mike
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