It’s becoming a fashion statement: “I’m leaving Twitter.” But, whilst indulgently retreating into the digital shadows is a fine attention-grabbing tactic for cosseted celebrities, brands should think twice.
This time last year, the pop group Girls Aloud had 109,000 Twitter followers. Then the band split up, deleting its Twitter account. Becoming what one follower called a “ghost band” deprived the girls and their label of any future opportunity to market still-available archive recordings.
When a brand ceases to be, its potential in the afterlife does not. Administrators, who were kept busy as the UK high street melted in recent years, sift the corpses of troubled companies for valuable assets. One such asset is a brand’s customer email database, which can be a vitally important sales and marketing channel to possible buyers, increasing the overall value of a distressed sale.
Although companies in this situation may be tempted to stop the tweets along with the salaries, this would be short-sighted. Not only could you be depriving thousands of recipients of anticipated messaging – in the same way as email, nowadays a brand’s Twitter follower base should be ascribed just such a value.
Here is what I say to any highly-followed individual or company considering pushing the self-destruct button:
1. Realise your value
Think about all the potential opportunities to you and your brand’s future self, lost if the ‘deactivate account’ option is clicked. Many of these opportunities will have intangible values, but think like a liquidator – if a retailer knows that its tweets generate 1,000 clicks a day, it likely can also discern sales levels from Twitter activity. If you calculate £20,000 in monthly sales coming from 20,000 Twitter followers, then suddenly an annual account valuation of £240,000 doesn’t look like small beans anymore.
2. Don’t let your brand be squatted
Deleting a Twitter account returns its username to the pool available for re-registration by anyone, just like in domain name land. Before doing so, consider leaving your account in place to protect its integrity, or examine whether possible acquirers value your username highly. Had HMV registered @hmv before this young man, it would have bagged a much more attractive Twitter brand than @hmvtweets. Your deletion decision can’t be undone if your name is snapped up again, except perhaps by a large suitcase of cash.
3. Save your history for the future
Whatever you do, obtain the list of your Twitter followers – this may be a valuable way for your next enterprise to contact previous customers, and can be exported using several available tools. Whilst you’re at it, export all of your tweets for posterity – you never know when your brand might need to know what it said, whether for legal reasons or just to correlate sales activity with historical messaging.
4. Signpost your new landscape
The transition of a troubled brand to a new owner or situation – even if that situation is the end of operations – doesn’t negate the responsibility to tell customers about the new reality. Tweeting one final parting shot, perhaps a link to an explanatory blog post, is a good tactic. Comet and BlockBuster UK are amongst the brands to have kept customers informed in this way after entering administration.
5. Don’t stop tweeting about tomorrow
However, in the age of stream-based, on-demand social media, one final tweet is not guaranteed to be read by all followers. Instead, use web tools like HootSuite or Buffer to automate a series of repeating tweets at a variety of times over the course of two months, maximising your chance of explaining matters to stakeholders.
6. Play the name game shuffle
Be aware that, whilst unlike Facebook accounts, Twitter accounts cannot be merged, they can be renamed. If your brand’s corporate destiny permits, consider renaming rather than deleting your existing account to your new name. This way, you will not lose any followers.