I came across an article by Eric Schwartzman and he did a great job of explaining the differences of running a Branded vs an Individual account for your business. My philosophy has always been, social media is just that…SOCIAL. I personally don’t want to develop a relationship with a ‘company’. I however wouldn’t mind talking to the owner or employee of one – a  big difference in my mind. 

I myself fell into the trap (for a milisecond) and started a ClearFrogMarketing twitter account and ended up discontinuing it just a week  later. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I wanted to engage my followers in an authentic relationship – and it wouldn’t be done hiding behind an icon of an amorphous company. 

Some people look at Twitter as a sales tool, but again I would caution against that line of thinking – Twitter is best used as a communication tool – to search real time conversations  – engage in those conversations and develop relationships. Twitter is an amazing brand awareness tool and can drive people to your website/blog for them to get to know you better – but the minute you start to use it as advertisement, you’ll lose not only followers but your credibility.

Read Eric’s article here

and if you have any thoughts on this - I’d love to hear them!

http://www.clearfrog-marketing.com
http://www.twitter.com/KellyKlein