I recently had a person I was following on Twitter that is an online marketing consultant who runs a few blogs in relation to online business and Twitter. I found this person because of my interest in those topics and started following him. His Twitter profile is running a custom design that mentions heavily that is into online marketing an consulting as well as small business. He has this brand established across his blogs and his Twitter profile that lets you know exactly what he is into and what to expect from him…. Perfect.
He now has me as a follower who checks out his blogs and his Twitter frequently. I’m part of his target audience who is there because of the topics his brand signifies. Unfortunately he is hurting all of that by getting on a political soap box on his Twitter. I mentioned it to him and he got defensive saying:
can’t and won’t be quiet when someone threatens my liberties. Unfollow if you must. Sorry!
I replied to him to tell him to think about it. It’s like that old country saying “don’t sh*t where you eat.” If you care about your brand, why would you hurt it by spewing your political views to people who are following you based on your interest of online marketing and consulting? I’m not saying that he shouldn’t express his political views, just saying his Twitter account isn’t the best venue for that considering his brand. He wouldn’t dare get on his online marketing blog and express his political views, why should micro blogging be any different?
If you’re using Twitter for personal tweets only then you don’t really have to worry about it, but if you’re building a brand it’s definitely something you need to consider. I really like this guy’s blog and his tweets in the past. I’ve gone out of my way to tweet about his blog and retweet for him because I like what he has to say. Now he has this stain on his brand and doesn’t realize it. I’m not going to unfollow him, but I almost did when I saw his reply. I hope he thinks about what I said and if it looks like he didn’t then I’ll probably have to unfollow. I assume he just thinks I’m someone who disagreed with him politically, but that’s not the case at all.
Just because it’s a micro blog doesn’t mean you should take it any less serious. Remember your brand follows you. Maybe he wants negative political statements to be part of his brand and I just don’t realize it. Either way, have fun alienating half of your followers.