Worst Example of a Company Twittering?

by Mack Collier

The problem that many companies face when they delve into the social media waters is that they really don't understand these new-fangled tools.  And that means they are probably going to use them in the wrong ways, and for the wrong reasons.

Which brings us to DirecTV's presence on Twitter.

Stoney mentioned that DirecTV was on Twitter over the weekend with this tweet:







And if you check their Twitter page, first you see this:











....then this:

Now to be fair, it's possible that DirecTV isn't behind this account.  But I would bet they are, simply because if someone else was on Twitter impersonating DirecTV, they would likely be familiar enough with the service to understand that you can't leave a direct message to someone that isn't following you. But a company that simply wanted to be on the 'hot new social media site', wouldn't get that.

This is why companies need to forget trying to use social media on their terms, and need to focus on using these tools as the rest of us do.  Having an effective presence on Twitter means you have to interact with other people.  You have to follow other people, and yes, you have to respond to people publically.

Or you can try using Twitter the way YOU think is best.  Because as we can see, as DirecTV's whopping ONE follower attests, the company clearly knows how to use Twitter better than the rest of us do.

UPDATE:  Literally as I was going to publish this post, Stoney left this tweet:







Kudos to DirecTV for monitoring Twitter, hopefully they'll now spice up their Twitter account and start using it as a tool to more effectively connect with their customers.

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