What is the Connection Between X, Social Media and Professionalism?
Professionalism? This post riffs on Be careful who you hire to manage your business’ Twitter account, a post on Social Media Today. Since the original post is from 2011, it’s not 100% relevant anymore. But I still think the ideas are of value.
And yes, we all know it was once called Twitter so that explains my URL and their title and URL as well.
In addition, in the original article, the author talks about, essentially, how to tell whether a particular feed is being handled professionally, or not. Hence following are their “5 Points to consider before hiring a service to manage your Twitter account.”
Professionalism: Check Their X Stream
1. First of all, before you even look at the different tools for measuring an X user’s level of influence (which can be misleading and in some cases manipulated) you firstly need to check the individual’s own X stream.
† What type of language do they use? – agreed. Because branding involves, among other things, speaking the language of your customers.
Are you a hip hop record label? A travel agency catering to retirees? A diamond jeweler? All of these businesses have different customer demographics.
Hence there is no “one size fits all” here. However, this does not mean people cannot adapt to communicate properly with everyone they do business with. After all, you need not hire a child to market to children.
But any Social Media Specialist needs to get the message across so that the target readership is receptive.
Lazy Messaging
• Do they spam their own followers by sending lazy messages? For example: #FF @Xuser1 @Xuser2 etc. Still, I am not so sure I call this spamming. I think, at times, it can useful to do this. At least, a little bit?
But overdoing it (and you will instantly know it is overkill if tweets (I still call them tweets. Don’t you?) like this, or quickie retweets, dominate the stream) is definitely not a good way to do business.
† How do they use their own account? Is it professional or sloppy? Do they send messages late into the night and have no professional boundaries? Do they over mix professional with personal messages? – agreed.
And with useful tools such as HootSuite, you can schedule messaging. A manager never needs to be up late and working in that manner.
There is no excuse for late night messaging, and no need for it. But if a stream is meant to engage internationally, it might be a good idea to split it up into more than one account, so that one stream is for North America and another for Asia.
Messaging
• Are their own messages all over the place so you are not able to pick up a clear message? – this is a good point, and not just when it comes to X. A clear message is key – for a robotics company where I worked, the message centered around sales.
Messages promoted education and/or robots. NASA, for example, was only mentioned in the context of robotics, not in the context of space launches. There is a lot of information out there.
Consider it to be a bit like a garden. Usually it needs weeding and thinning, as opposed to fertilizing.
† Furthermore, do they acknowledge where they take their material from or just duplicate what they see their competitors do? – ah, this is big. It is why I still list the original source for this article. And it is a big part of how the internet works, or at least is supposed to.
You post a blog entry. A competitor sees it. If they riff on it and post it and give you a link back, then that is good for you. And you thank them and do the same in reverse and yeah, they are still a competitor. But you have common ground and in some areas you can cooperate.
This is still true in the age of AI, I might add.
Or they don’t acknowledge you. And everybody digs their heels in and the world becomes a slightly more miserable place. Hey, you make the call, but I prefer cooperation pretty much every time, myself.
Too Much Self-Promotion?
• Do their messages make any sense to you or are they just full of self promotion? Do they hold no real value other than grooming their own ego? – true, but I think sometimes this can come from social media marketing folk not being properly trained.
If the marketing manager is unsure of how much promotion should be mixed in with information, the marketer might be similarly confused.
† How much negativity comes across in their stream? – not everything is or should be positive, but I do get this. The idea is, well, are you promoting to people who want to buy your company’s organic brownie mix? Or do you just sound petulant and whiny?
However, you can sometimes be too perky. But I think if there are errors in this area, they should probably fall on the side of more, rather than less, perk.
Professionalism: Which Business Accounts Do They Manage?
2. Ask for the name of one of the business accounts they manage, and go through this with a fine tooth comb. Keep an active eye on the account and monitor how they manage the business’ online profile.
• How many messages are there and what type do they send? – it is a quantity and a quality game on X. You need to get across some seven or more views before people start to consider buying.
And consider X’s international, 24/7 appeal – people may be checking your messaging out at 4 AM your time.
This, by the way, goes against an earlier statement about the marketer not adding content into the wee hours. No, they should no – but unfortunately, sometimes, that is when the readers are online.
After all, if you are making content for people playing World of Warcraft, they may be on at 4 AM. As for quality, that goes along with the above statements as well – are the messages worthwhile, or are they dull self-promotion?
Engagement
† How do they engage with the client’s audience? – some of this is in the form of retweeting. Retweeting and replying have a place, as it is a give and take type of engagement. Is there professionalism behind the engagement?
• And how is the call-to-action placed and worded? – this is fairly self-explanatory. There is a difference between what looks like a hard sell, and what has more of a friendly “Hey, check this out” vibe.
Does the marketer know the difference? And is the difference readily apparent in messaging?
† In addition, do the articles relate to the client’s industry and audience? – this harkens back to my NASA example above. Content is necessary, of course, but irrelevant content is worse than no content at all.
Because it is better that the marketer pump out less content if it is not relevant, yes?
Any SEO or AI SEO will tell most companies that they have too much content, rather than not enough. So, cut out the fluff, already!
• Do they add any value? – the $64,000 question! Can you tell without having access to measurement tools?
Professionalism: References
3. Ask for a number of references and call them. This, of course, is excellent advice any time you are hiring.
† How has the business level of influence grown? For sure if they cannot achieve this for themselves, then they cannot do it for the client. – try objective measurements if you can get them, like Google rankings, bounce rate, etc.
• What have been the benefits? – only your industry will have the specifics for this. Increased sales may or may not be the actual benefit.
After all, sometimes social media is used for damage control. If that can happen more efficiently and inexpensively – that might be the benefit.
† What difference has it made to your online brand? – again, this is a specific question.
• How good is the level of communication? – hard to say what this means without context. After all, the car dealer and the online cancer support group will have different needs in this area.
† What results has the business seen? – again, objective measurements are best, whatever you can get.
Professionalism: Metrics
4. Ask what X measuring tools they use to provide their clients with monthly reports. Do they use anything else to measure how things are working (or not)?
• While there are some good free tools around, they do not come close to paid analytical tools for managing X and other social media accounts. – agreed, but sometimes that is how things go, particularly if the person you are considering has worked for startups or nonprofits.
†Ask what recommendations they have made to the client that have enabled the business to grow based on the findings. – these should be in whatever reports the person under consideration provides.
Professionalism: Time
5. Finally, ask how much time they intend to spend on your account over the week.
• How will this time be managed with all their other projects? – this is a good question for any sort of a freelance or offsite working relationship.
† What elements of account management does this breakdown in to? – again, this is not confined to social media. Rather, it is a good question for any potential employee who will be working remotely, or not exclusively with you.
• How will they keep you informed and up to date with relevant messages and conversations? – reports? Emails? Something on Slack or Teams? What is manageable and relevant?
Professionalism: My Own Ideas
And now a few of my own when it comes to professionalism.
† What do the messages look like? Are they interesting? Relevant? Grammatically correct within the character limit? Or are they just slight variations on a theme?
• Do all provided links work, or do they go to dead ends? And do the links have any sort of measurement behind them, even simple click metrics? Do they lead to generic pages, or to any custom landing pages for X users? Can you get metrics and attribution from them?
† What is the follow/follower ratio? Does the person follow everyone, or are they, at least seemingly, a bit choosy in this area? We all know that junk follower accounts exist – does the prospective hiree even follow those or seem to use auto-follow?
More Ideas on Professionalism and X
• So how often does the person send a message? Daily? Monthly? A monthly X stream is barely this side of useful. Messages need not come every five seconds. But it is a fluid, evolving medium and needs more attention than that.
† How do they handle the controversial things that Musk gets up to? Even a community solely devoted to politics might want to sit out at least some of those shenanigans.
And finally, and this is a question for the person (and you may not get an accurate answer, by the way), does the person under consideration actually like what he or she is doing?
Do they have a passion for it? Or is it, like, Time to make the doughnuts?
I am not saying that we can (or should) always love what we do. But plenty of people love doing this. Why not hire someone who does?
Finally, you can get a passionate Social Media person, to handle your Twitter stream, do your blogging, manage your online community, promote your Facebook page and more. And they will do it with professionalism and aplomb.
We really do exist.
Want More About Twitter AKA X?
If my experiences with X resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about this still misunderstood microblogging platform.
While it has a newish name, and has changed considerably, a lot of these tips will still work. And they will often work with other social media platforms as well.
Almost Everything But the Tweet
• Starting a Twitter Stream
† Demystifying Twitter/X
• Verbal Elements on X
† Visual Elements on X
• Optimizing Twitter/x
† Metrics and Timing on X
• Offsite Connections from X
And, if you’re a fellow writer, you may want to check out:
† PitMad on Twitter/X
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