There’s a lot to be said for humor. Having a chuckle or a good laugh is great for breaking the ice in any kind of relationship and that includes business.
How many business events have you attended where the first thing the presenter does is tell a joke? Why? Because it is an ice breaker, puts people at ease, and also gives the appearance of leveling the playing field. In other words, the presenter is a regular person like the audience.
Twitter is a social networking site where every day people ‘tweet’ messages to their followers. Now businesses are joining in and using Twitter as a platform to introduce followers to their businesses. So how can humor help?
It’s important to understand something about social media in general. Social Media sites were first developed for people to be able to socialize on the Internet and keep up to date with what’s going on with friends and family. It has expanded into another platform for businesses to get their message out to millions of people.
Where businesses might fail using social media is if the public perceives them to simply be advertising their business rather than being real contributors to the social side of things.
A great way to be ‘real’ is with humor. Humor has a wonderful energy, lifts spirits and helps people to feel good. So, if businesses use humor when communicating on Twitter, they may find they get more ‘followers’ to whom they may later interject more information about their business.
Although humor may be advantageous when creating your Twitter profile, the style of humor is important. It must be in good taste as it will reflect on you personally as well as on your business professionally. So, be respectful and use good sense. Once you publish comments to the web, you can’t take them back. They are there for the world to see. No second chances.
If in doubt, check with the manager of your business or colleagues. The goal is to get more and more followers who will be receiving your business messages so you want the information you share to be appealing.
Companies who use Twitter as part of their marketing and public relations campaigns need to be reminded that this is social media; ‘social’ being the operative word. If it litters the site with only self serving-ads, and overly self-promotional tweets, they will be found out and will lose followers rapidly.
Humor is the way to go in creating your business profile on Twitter, as it puts followers at ease. Keep your tweets in good taste, provide value in them and then periodically interject with tweets more related to your business.
