You must be authentic and tweet for yourself : Twitter executive

Mike Brown (@mikeisbrown), Director of Corporate Development at Twitter, speaking at the CITE Conference in San Francisco today, made clear Twitter is not something you have another person handle for you. As reported by Lucas Mearian (@lucasmearian) of Computerland, Brown told the audience:

I think whether you’re a brand or a marketer or a small business owner, you need to talk with an authentic voice that feels like your own, one your customers know. Your customer’s BS meter is pretty good. Don’t hand off your Twitter to your PR agency or even an intern who’s going to be with your business for a short while.

Brown praised media mogul Rupert Murdoch for authentic tweets. “Whether you subscribe to his politics or not, the guy tells it like he thinks it and you really get that sense when you read his tweets.” All too many law firms and lawyers make the mistake of treating Twitter like a marketing channel through which you push your content at people. Law firm and marketing professionals, whether in-house or hired hands, tweet for lawyers, in lawyers’ names, practice group names, and in the law firm’s name. Lawyers and law firms are only fooling themselves by thinking they’re extending their brand tweeting like this. As Brown says, your target audience, including your clients and prospective clients have good BS meters. They see through your facade. Twitter is about sharing information and news you personally read with others who have an interest in the subjects you share information about. The fact you’re sharing certain types  information lets people have a peak into your mind and see how you think. Add a little more context in your tweets and you’re being even more authentic. The byproduct of tweeting like this is establishing yourself as an authority in a niche, demonstrating you are well read, and establishing relationships with people who come to trust you by trusting you as a personal source of news and information. As Euan Semple (@euan) titled his book. ‘Organizations Don’t Tweet, People Do.’