Does Your Company Need Multiple Twitter Pages?

With Twitter now up and running, what is the best way to spread the wealth? If you have a small company it may not be important to you or even necessary to look at who else in your company could make use of Twitter, but for those in larger companies with several departments, this will become necessary. It may become necessary far faster than you would expect too.


Such is the case with my current company. We were slow to get on board, but now that we are tweeting away, there are more and more departments who want to get their own Twitter page. It is important that you don't just let every department create their own page. Twitter, while easily accessible, is still a marketing communications medium that you must use strategically.


This brings us back to the Twitter style guide, which if you began to create your style guide, you may have realized that it could easily be turned into a social media or Twitter policy. Until you have this in place, don't even think about spreading out to other departments. It will just open a can of worms that you don't want to deal with, not to mention that you don't have time for.


Once you have your style guide or policy in place then it is important to control the role out to other departments. Look at all the departments who are requesting that they have their own Twitter page and determine which department should be next to create their page. This determination and prioritization of departments should be made based on your company's strategic initiatives.


When you decide which departments to role out Twitter to first, then you must also educate those who will manage Twitter for the chosen departments. It is important you don't just give them the green light without proper training. You must also remember that you are still managing the effort overall. So don't let more departments participate than you can effectively oversee.


It is also important to note, that the Twitter style guide and policy you've created may need tweaking and exceptions may be necessary for some departments in order for their tweeting to be effective. Be flexible where you can, but don't throw the rules out completely. You need to make sure your company's brand is well represented.

Basically, you need to make sure you take the time to carefully and strategically start other Twitter pages, just as you did with your first one. Be prepared to involve other departments, but also, it isn't necessary that all departments have a Twitter page even if they request one. It isn't the right medium for every need.

Here are the three key ways to determine if another department needs its own Twitter page:

1. 
   Does the department have a very specific niche audience that is fundamentally different from your company's general audience? An example of this is a hospital that uses Twitter to speak to patients and potential patients, but the recruiting department wants to user Twitter to speak to potential new physicians.
2. Does the department have its own strategic goals that are separate of the larger company? An example of this is an accounting firm using twitter to communicate with existing clients, but one division of the firm would like to grow their niche area. The audiences could use information from either Twitter page, but one page will be more narrow in scope.
3. Does having an additional Twitter page for one of your departments serve a strategic purpose such as expanding your reach? Having one Twitter page may not attract all the people who would follow you if you had other Twitter pages. A great example is the New York Times, which has a news Twitter page, a theatre Twitter page, a New York Times sports Twitter page and a business Twitter page among others. People may follow the sports Twitter page, but then also begin to follow some of their other pages.

Overall, be strategic. You don't want to dilute your brand or message by having too many Twitter pages to be effective.