transparency

What is the best way to represent an organization visually on social media like Twitter?

On every social media platform, a participant can be represented by a username, screen name, or “handle” and also by a visual image. So along with choosing a good handle, an organization and/or its online representative needs to choose an avatar, an image that may be a logo, a photograph, a cartoon, or a picture of the organization’s puppy.

As with any organizational representation, you’d want it to be distinctive (i.e., to stick out as itself), memorable, and continuous (i.e., not changing often). You’d want a visual representation that stands out as ‘itself’ so that social media users can easily recognize ‘the organization’ every time you post, tweet, message, etc.

Given the argument that social media platforms are designed for individual users (i.e., they demand a first-person presence), you’d think that the most desirable way to represent a collective like an organization on would be to use the face of a representative member, like the CEO or the Brandividual. In contrast to the organization’s logo, wouldn’t you prefer interacting with a face, even a face with a logo (like @ScottMonty’s avatar)?

That’s what I thought, until I read Kristy Bolsinger’s post: Corporate Twitter Account: Logo v Person.

Bolsinger, an online marketing and communications professional, was smart enough to “take the pulse” of best practice/advice. She conducted an (admittedly unscientific) poll of her Twitter colleagues who themselves are involved in Internet marketing. The results were clear, and not what I expected.

Bolsinger found that 58% of her colleagues recommended using a logo, and not a face, to represent an organization online.

Contrast this to the advice floated just this weekend by ‘comcast bonnie’, in Paul Boutin’s NYT article “A Day with 400 Tweets…”

Says ‘comcast bonnie’ (aka Bonnie Smalley)

“When I started with the team, I had just the Comcast C as my icon,”… “This doesn’t tell people I’m a real person.” She soon replaced the corporate logo with a smiling self-portrait and a goofy background image packed with cartoon characters. By appearing as real, individual and approachable, she has prompted customers to share their problems and frustrations with her.”

Thus, the main takeaway from that article has been: “Choose A Face”. What’s important is to humanize the brand. You’d want folks to know that there was a real person on the other end of the message.

Social Media’s Unique Selling Proposition is the opportunity to present, simultaneously, the organization as an entity and the representing member as a person. That’s what makes social media “special” and different from other forms of corporate / organizational communication.

I’d want to split the difference… I’ve advised folks to use a face with an organizational tag or logo added to it. And, this was the second most popular choice…of 27% of respondents.

So why would internet marketers recommend logos over faces?

Bolsinger suggests four reasons for this preference (I paraphrase):

1. Using a visual that is owned by and only connected to the organization
2. Creating a subtle ‘work only’ boundary around the behavior of the individual doing the representing
3. Maintaining continuity over the longer term (beyond that brandividual’s tenure)
4. Avoiding the reputational risk that an actual person and his/her outside work behavior might expose

I’d add a few more reasons:

5. People are not naive, they know there’s a person, and organizations think we’ll all get used to it. (Haven’t we, already?)
6. Realness and authenticity– by organizations online– is a fantasy anyway. “All messages are massaged” as we’d say.

7. It depends on who you ask, and what their goal is.

When you ask the person representing the organization, they say “face plus logo”. When you ask the persons responsible for positioning the organization online, they say logo. The brandividual serves herself and the organization, the social media consultant serves the organization.

Which one of these will give us the more authentic communication experience? I’d consult Pine & Gilmore, and then conclude that ‘it depends’.

So that leaves us with a different question:

When you interact with an organization online, what do you want to interact with?

A logo representing an abstracted voice, or a person speaking on the organization’s behalf?

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