Photo credit: ariadna
Every tweet sent by Southwest Airlines is written by Christi McNeill, but she is explicit that her personal tweets are not representative of her employer.
How truthful is she?
How truthful are others?
Marc Meyer, Ken Burbary, Julia Roy, Eric Andersen, Lisa Brown, Steve Lunceford, Amber Naslund, Shannon Paul, Ike Pigott, and Gradon Tripp are but a handful of thousands, if not millions, of other people who also work for other employers and who also have personal Twitter accounts that specify their tweets are not representative of their bosses.
Either they are asked by management to disclose such, or they take initiative to disclose it themselves.
The irony is such a disclosure is merely perceived as a conflict.
There is no conflict.
The moment Christi tells the world she works for Southwest (which is explicit in both her bio and in SouthwestAir’s bio), it is moot to read that her tweets are her own.
Morgan Johnston, her equal at JetBlue Airways, takes the opposite approach. His personal account is specific that his tweets are his own.
Is Morgan misleading you?
If he is lacking that disclosure then so are Nicholas Porter, Connie Bensen, Jeremiah Owyang, Gini Dietrich, Chris Brogan, Peter Kim, Sir Roger Moore, Katie Couric, and countless others.
When you see Katie’s tweets, do you wonder if she is representing her own thoughts or those of CBS? Does it even matter who is behind each tweet when you know her employer?
Peter Kim opines why Christi and her ilk use the wrong words:
If a person uses their corporate affiliation to build credibility, further association of published content with brand is impossible to ignore… An employee doesn’t need to be discussing internal operations or other official business to create external impressions of the brand. Once the connection has been established, it persists.
Do people not follow Christi because she works for Southwest?
Perception is reality. It’s moot to indicate your tweets are not your own. Of course they are, and of course you will continue to represent your employer regardless what your bio says.
Thanks, Peter, for sparking this review.
About Ari Herzog
The individual represents the brand and in time it is very difficult and counter productive to differentiate the person from the brand. I follow certain individuals simply because of their affiliation with certain well known companies. To me they always represent the company.
And, if they change jobs will you cease following them?
I might if I like their new company or brand and then again I might not. If for example I was following Katie Couric and she left and went to work for the BBC, I might become disinterested in her tweets simply because I do not follow the BBC. There are people who never followed Sarah Palin when she was Governor of Alaska but started to follow her when she changed her brand to VP candidate and then stopped following her when she changed her brand again.
I know Julia, Eric and Gradon and I know their Tweets are their own. Chris’ tweets are also his own and on behalf of his many businesses.
I’m a big fan (or was) of Brooke Burke. She CONSTANTLY tweets on behalf of a multitude of sponsors without disclosing them:
http://www.mdurwin.com/2011/03/yes-im-selling-this-endorsement-transparancy/
It’s difficult to get all of your sponsors and personal bio into the brief space that Twitter allows, but, until Twitter offers expanded bio/info areas, there is an easy workaround, point your bio to a blog sponsor page or, as I do, an About.Me page:
http://twitter.com/#!/mdurwin
If their tweets are their own, then why specify such, Michael?
As Eric says, perhaps they are legally required to? Perhaps it’s a way to say “I’m not tweeting on behalf of my company” then actually tweet on behalf of their company, or it’s a way to draw attention to who they work for without tweeting it. They may have just thought it was the right thing to do, or to cover their own ass when they post a picture of themselves being drunk an belligerent.
I’m not saying any of these possibilities is the case for any of these folks. As I said, I know them all and they all “get it”.
As Peter Kim writes in the article I cite that sparked my article above, the entire concept of “tweets are mine” and such statements are to cover their asses — so you’re entirely correct, Michael.
Thanks, Ari, appreciate you including me in the conversation. As part of any online activity, I am required by my employer (IBM) to both (a) identify myself as an IBMer, and (b) “make it clear that you are speaking for yourself and not on behalf of IBM”. Please see this and some additional background information in IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines – which I’ll add are frequently considered a model in the industry:
http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html
So does indicating this imply conflict, or call into question “who is behind each tweet”? I do not believe so at all. I am behind each tweet. I am also an IBM employee. So far so good? Knowing where I work is important context for my activity online, but it is hardly the only such context. I do more than just work, on occasion
So why am I required to indicate I don’t speak on behalf of IBM? Simply put, I am not an official spokesperson for the company. I am not in Marketing or in Public Relations, and my Twitter account is not an official IBM account. It’s important for the public, the media, etc to be able have a clear distinction between about which are the official statements, especially with large companies where news and information abound.
But as the first commenter mentioned, when a person says they work at a company, they will “always represent the company” despite any disclaimer. This is fine, and shouldn’t be considered problematic. In fact, in my role as a consultant in Global Business Services (GBS), I am expected to represent IBM in my daily work with customers. And yet for my actions and statements, while they certainly reflect on IBM, they do not reflect the official views of IBM. It’s certainly hard to convey this all in a Twitter bio, hence “My tweets are my own” attempts to sum up what I’ve described here.
Eric, I met you in the flesh at a cocktail reception. I don’t recall if you donned a nametag and/or if that tag specified your IBM affiliation. But I am fairly positive the tag wouldn’t have included language such as, “My voice is my own.”
So, why specify that on Twitter? Because face-to-face conversations are not considered social computing?
Thanks, good question – I believe it’s because online activity is distinct from face-to-face interaction in that it’s clearly recorded, indexed by search engines, etc. So for example if were being interviewed face-to-face and the audio/video were recorded, I should probably include a statement that I’m not representing the official views of IBM.
Some people like other firm representatives might follow people for business, but some people just have a great personality!
Huh? What’s one’s personality got to do with it?
I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying about Chris Brogan and me, specifically. Why would either of us state we’re either tweeting for the business or ourselves when it’s one and the same?
Many companies require people say their tweets are their own for legal reasons. If an employee said something, even by accident, the company is free from being brought into a lawsuit. Maybe it’s a moot point for those of us in the social world, but it’s not in the legal world.
Is it one and the same, Gini? Are you the sole employee of Arment Dietrich? Maybe you are but your title of CEO implies you are the chief of others, too.
Huh. I was thinking it’s different for Brogan and Gini b/c they run their own businesses, are their employers. So if one of their employees is offended by something Gini tweets, does that reflect on just Gini, AD and/or that employee? IDK.. still not quite sure what I think.
What goes around comes around. It’s beyond Twitter, even, albeit I’m focusing on Twitter. Forget one’s employees; look to one’s potential clients.
It’s me, myself and I so if clients or potentials don’t like my tweets or style, they can unfollow or we can part ways. That said I am selective in what I post or share, so that doesn’t happen too much but really I have no idea.
Thinking back on a biz.. say the housekeeping manager for a 1,200 room resort had a personal Twitter, one that has nothing to do with his job, he’s not part of the marketing team, etc. If he doesn’t post about work.. will the company require a disclosure, for all employees? If he does disclose, will that open his feed to ‘our room needs work’ requests anyway? IDK.. thinking the same of FB and other profiles, when yes others may know where you work but really it’s of little relevance to those interactions. Still can’t get to a point.
Great post, Ari. I agree with you that, once professional affiliations with companies/brands are disclosed via Twitter, that person can claim all they want that ‘my tweets are my own,’ but that doesn’t change the fact that followers will continue to associate that person’s content with their company/brand. I like the example you give of Katie Couric. Of course, her tweets could technically be here own, but, as long as she works for CBS, what she ‘allows’ herself to tweet will always be somehow influenced, whether consciously or subconsciously, by her professional affiliation with CBS.
Eric, isn’t it weird that you need to identify yourself as an employee of IBM, but then say you don’t speak for them? If you didn’t identify yourself as their employee, you’d only be representing yourself anyway. By saying that you’re an employee, there’s an automatic assumption that you do, in some way, represent them.
Not only is it free pr for them, but their ass is covered if you make an embarrassing comment. I would bet that if you suddenly started tweeting pictures of kitty torture, they’d cut you loose anyway.
Gini, if your tweets are intrinsically tied to whoever you represent, shouldn’t we know who you represent? Imagine I went on and on about all the great deals at Whole Foods. Now, if that was just coming from me personally it would have a more honest context and might influence others who trust my judgment or appreciate that I’ve informed them. That’s a whole lot different than how the official Whole Foods account would be received. Now, if I was sponsored or getting paid by Whole Foods and didn’t make my Followers aware of this fact, I may be committing fraud. As a matter of fact, I would be committing fraud.
Celebrities, even Internet or Social Media celebrities, which Chris, Brooke Burke, Katie Couric certainly are, have an undue influence on users. Several European countries are considering legislature to levee fines on anyone considered to have celebrity status as is the FTC. If anyone thinks this isn’t an issue, take into account 50 Cent’s tweet about a stock he owned and the $10 million he made when it went up after his Tweets. The SEC is investigating.
Social Media is supposed to be open and transparent (yes, they’re different). In keeping with it’s nature, those of us who practice social media professionally need to lead the way in terms of matters such as these. It’s not too difficult to have a disclaimer link in your bio (as I do) that lists any and all affiliations. Otherwise you might get slammed like this:
http://www.mdurwin.com/2011/03/yes-im-selling-this-endorsement-transparancy/
Or find yourself with a hefty fine from the FCC, FTC, etc.
There is a difference between the way people look at your account when they think it’s just personal vs. when they think it’s linked with a company. Even if you’re just saying where you work, they start to assume that your tweets are not always your own. I ran into that with my blog – almost got into a huge “debate” with someone and it turned out the reason they were mad at me was because they thought my blog was somehow sponsored by my company and my points were invalid because I was “selling a service” – not just a blogger.
I love where I work just as much as the next person loves their job, but I removed my affiliation off the main homepage and my Twitter because of that. I want people to know everything they read is from me, not any relation to from my company.
That said, I still share things from my work blog just like I share things from someone else’s blog – I will share it if I think it’s a great article and my followers would benefit from it. Period.
I really just had a lack of words for the tiny profile section that Twitter provides, so I went with the obvious…kidding!
At Southwest we encourage all of our Employees to include that little disclaimer if they choose to disclose that they are a Southwest Employee or if they are affiliated (by photo, tweet, etc) with SW. The reason for that disclaimer is primarily for transparency with our Customers. It doesn’t give our Employees the freedom to tweet, say, or share whatever they want (they still must represent our Company the Southwest way)…same as if they are standing in line at Starbucks in uniform. In fact, we try to make it very clear to our Employees that anything said in a public forum or space could be used as a “statement” from a Southwest Employee in the media.
Honestly, I feel like it’s fairly obvious that when I tweet something like “Can’t wait for Glee tonight!” the people who follow me understand that’s not a statement or endorsement from Southwest. But when I tweet something such as “Southwest Employees are the best in the land,” my personal followers understand that I’m a paid Southwest Employee.
I think it all gets very murky, especially for those of us who represent major brands and try to have a personal space too (which I think is reflected in how you separated the two groups above). As always, happy to hear any feedback you or anyone else has on the topic…
Christi: Are you saying that if I have a Twitter account and went to work for Southwest, I’d be encouraged to disclose that I’m a Southwest employee, but whether I did or not, Southwest believes that anything I say would be considered by Southwest as being potentially considered an official statement?
That is a slippery slope. Does Southwest feel that how their employees vote could be used by the media as a “statement”? Do you think Southwest should be concerned that because you said “Can’t wait for Glee tonight” (which I still don’t get, people really do like watered down pop music from teens?) the media might consider that Southwest officially endorses Glee, that it’s employees are impatient, or that they prefer teen comedy/musicals/romance over hard journalism or documentaries?
Hi Ari,
My guess is that in many cases it is company policy. Someone in legal thought it would release the company from any heinous tweet that their employee put out.
Common sense dictates that our tweets are our own thoughts. No one is telling us what to tweet. My role consists partly of being the voice of the company and I have been criticized internally for not tweeting all things company. So flipping this on it’s head, I said that my Twitter followers have rights too. They followed me with good faith that I would provide them with what I think about.
And of course we follow some because of their affiliation with a brand. (And frequently realize that they have personalities beyond just being an employee!).
Thanks for the post. It may be something to ponder with legal. But I think it’s better to be able to have the disclaimer rather than not be able to tweet at all. Wait a minute.. I mean, not be able to use your title & company’s brand. (But that would mean you’re not contributing to the brand’s presence.) I think over time companies will come around, but in the meantime, some are stuck with it.
Connie
Hey Ari, I would firstly love to say that I love this statement of yours, “Perception is reality”… Superb stuff!! I would mention here that tweeting is one’s way of communicating to the world & it’s his personal opinion. I also have certain amount of people who are from various marketing companies who are on the post of VP/ Head managers, they do tweet & does some sort of branding for their companies & merchandises, but do you really feel that doing so would really affect their growth & policies?? Their personality does charmingly attract someone & thus increases their marketing demands. I follow people because they are brand names like American Airlines, KFC, etc…
Ari,
Along the lines of what Gini pointed out, two-thirds of your “no disclaimer” examples are either individual entrepreneurs or partners/owners in firms, so you really didn’t do an apples to apples comparison here. Perhaps when an individual largely *is* the brand, they may not have to navigate the types of policies in place that larger firms do?
At Deloitte, our social media guidance makes clear that 1) only authorized personnel may speak on behalf of the firm and 2) employees are encouraged to make clear for whom they speak, hence my use of a disclaimer that says my tweets don’t represent my employer. Based on his comments, I think Eric’s POV and mine are largely in sync.
Deloitte certainly understands that social media posts may be considered a position of the firm regardless of whether the intent is personal rather than business. And we also teach our folks that anytime they are identified as a Deloitte person, they impact the way the firm is viewed. Our guidance specifically notes that disclaimers aren’t a cure-all, but that they are encouraged.
How do you figure? Aside from Roger Moore, every person in the second list works in a company with more than one person.
A company with more than one person is different from working in a large company where you may not be in charge of the communications policies. Gini, Chris and Peter are all in positions to make those policies, certainly Chris is. Sir Roger’s position as UNICEF ambassador may require him to adhere to UNICEF policies, most certainly Katie is in the same position.
My question to you Ari is: if you took a full time job with Google, and they required you to add “I work for Google but my tweets do not reflect the opinion of my company”:
a) would you add it or give up the job?
b) would you be ultra careful not to Tweet anything that might be based on your knowledge or affiliation with Google (such as “Ad Banners are Pointless”)
c) would you be thrilled that your position at Google, and disclosing it, meant a sudden increase of Followers, reTweets, @Replies?
I would not take a fulltime job with Google so it’s a moot question.
The better question is this: Are these miniature Twitter disclosures required by the employer or added by the employee because employees at other companies have them in place?
Ari,
That is not a better question. I’m sure some add them because they think they need to and others add them because everyone else has.
So, you would not take a job at Google. It’s still not a Moot question, you’re just dodging it. If you took ANY job with ANY company, specifically one that improves your industry standing, and they required you to add “I work for X-Company but my tweets do not reflect the opinion of my company”:
a) would you add it or give up the job?
b) would you be ultra careful not to Tweet anything that might be based on your knowledge or affiliation with Google (such as “Ad Banners are Pointless”)
c) would you be thrilled that your position at X_Company, and disclosing it, meant a sudden increase of Followers, reTweets, @Replies?
If someone mandated I edit my Twitter bio even if I don’t tweet about the company, I’d ask why before nodding my head in agreement. If they don’t have it in a policy, then why are they asking it?
Everyone on the “disclosure” list appears to be an employee for a firm. The majority of your “non-disclosure” list are either owners or founders of their firms, which certainly sets them apart.
Morgan = firm employee
Nicholas = partner (definition of which = owner to some extent)
Connie = firm employee
Jeremiah = partner
Gini = founder/CEO
Chris = founder/President
Peter = firm employee (I may have mentally miscounted Peter as a partner when I stated “two-thirds” earlier)
Roger = actor/represents self
Katie = firm employee (though one with an employment contract and arguably a “brand” in and of herself).
Maybe owners, founders, presidents, partners, etc. are not employees, but they are representing their business and/or professional brand in what they do online. Just like Bob Parsons may be founder & CEO of his company and not an employee, but his personal “elephant vacation” antics landed his company in the hot seat.
Why do you place the word disclosure in quotations? Is it or is it not a disclosure?
Actually, Roger Moore represents an organization (UNICEF) that may have a social media policy requiring disclosure and a distancing statement.
Still cannot decide Ari. I’ve wondered why people follow Scott Monty, is it that they like Ford or the social media stuff? Will they follow him when he leaves? The discussion with Christi and Michael is valid on the line between personal/professional.. what constitutes endorsement, etc. Mark Schaefer did a thing on corporate tweeters, and I still struggle with that. We tell companies to be ‘human’ in their tweets, but then .. what happens when an employee being paid to tweet for a brand gets too personal or political or silly with their tweets? IDK.
It’s easier for me being solo and not having personal friends on Twitter; they just aren’t. Plus I have a different account for chatting about not watching Glee and other things. Hmm.. there are legal sides and practical sides; if I worked for Company X and their social media policy required such a disclaimer, guess I’d have to include it in my profile if I wanted to keep that gig whether I was the ‘official’ tweeter or not. FWIW.
For the record I began following Scott Monty when he was at Crayon because he was a mice guy, smart marketer, there weren’t that many of us on Twitter and I was hoping he’d get me a job at Crayon.
Whenever I hear about Crayon, I think about Crayola.
Heh.. late to the Twitter party, so I’m just hoping for a car.. or a job with Ford.
Davina,
Do you think it’s appropriate to push a completely irrelevant blog post on this thread?
You know Michael, I JUST – like 30 minutes ago
– commented elsewhere talking about the ComLuv plugin and how I do mix up posts. More often than not, it’s so that I can in fact pick a post more relevant to the conversation. Sometimes in my rush to be quippy, I just let the most recent one fly. It’s his house, Ari can remove any links he doesn’t like, it’s all good. FWIW.
If you think it’s all good, good for you. I disagree. Obviously you knew the thread based on your comment “so I’m just hoping for a car.. or a job with Ford.”, yet you pasted a totally irrelevant link, hoping that we’d all visit your blog. I will not, most other likely will not. Many of us will assume you’re just hitting this blog to link bait.
You never know when an unrelated topic might hit home. My hubby is having the now or later for an iPhone debate. So it kind of fits my needs in an odd sort of way.
Seems like if you are posting multiple times in a thread, you might as well show off different pieces of content in the CommentLuv plugin. Maybe I wasn’t interested in the first few things someone posted, but the next I was, vs just using the same link over and over again (which I do sometimes out of laziness) that you might not be interested and therefore never come check out my site.
You’re making quite the assumption about Davina’s motivations are you not? Is THAT appropriate?
Yes!
Davina comments here now and then. She’s not baiting you. Well, not me, anyway.
Wasn’t baiting anyone, just enjoying the conversation.
I care less about people’s links to their blogs. I can quickly tell if someone is spamming. You’re not.
Is it her fault for choosing a blog post to share via ComLuv?