Tweet King

Recently I’ve been feeling a little insecure about my tweet game, I find myself constantly favoriting and retweeting my favorite Twitter accounts but I never post content of my own. I’ve come to the conclusion that I will never be a Kim Uong or a Sarah Sharp and that’s okay, Twitter is just not my medium. But just because it’s not a platform that I’m comfortable with, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t engage with it. I’ve been noticing there has been a rise of brand personalities on Twitter. Wendy’s has a hilarious account and we can all agree that the zoom in zoom out on the pancake tweet from Denny’s was unreal. But one of my favorite accounts is RGA and I decided to investigate who is the man or woman behind the screen making this account come to life. If you haven’t followed the account do it NOW, here of some of my favorite tweets in the last couple of days. 

And now, here is my email interview with Chapin Clark.

1. What is your position in RGA?
I am EVP, ECD, at R/GA.

2. How did you become assigned to run the RGA Twitter account? How long have you been running the account?
I took over the R/GA Twitter account from our corporate communications (PR) department in 2008 or 2009. At the time, I don’t think they knew what to do with it. I’m a writer, and I was already tweeting for myself. I had been at R/GA seven years or so at that point, so I knew the company and its culture. I guess they thought I wouldn’t mess it up too badly.

3. Have you seen a change in your tweets from when you first got a hold of the account?
Well, initially I didn’t know what to do with it, either. I knew it wouldn’t be right to tweet as if it were solely for myself. But I wasn’t interested in managing something blandly corporate, either. I ended up with a hybrid: observations on advertising, business, and culture through a first-person-singular voice. There was a lot of trial and error early on. I’d do things like live-tweet Sir Martin Sorrell on Charlie Rose. I had no idea what people would think was interesting. I’m not sure I do even now. One big difference is I used to link to a lot of things – news articles, blog posts, etc. – that other people were linking to, as well. I don’t do that nearly as much anymore. If you’re not at least trying to say something original, your stuff tends to get lost. (And even if you are trying, it often gets lost.)

4. How do you separate work from play? Do you sometimes make the account too personal?
The line between work and play, or the R/GA account and my personal account, is a blurry one. Really, tweeting for R/GA isn’t work, it’s fun. If it felt like work, I wouldn’t be doing it. I’ll make jokes about stuff on @rga and make earnest statements on @chapinc. There are lots of things I post that could go in either place. But in general, if it’s about anything even tangentially related to the work we do at R/GA, I’ll put it there. If it’s obscene, or political but not related to the communications work of politics, or personal in a way that makes me sound like a cranky, irrational old man, I’ll tweet it from @chapinc. But there have definitely been times when I’ve tweeted things from @rga and thought, OK I’m being too self-indulgent, I’m forgetting the audience and I need to shift.

5. Do you think all brands should have space for personality on social media?
I don’t think every brand should have a capital V Voice on social media, in the sense of, like, a big personality. Just as some people aren’t funny, some brands aren’t meant to be funny, or wildly entertaining. But I do think every brand has a purpose in social media. The voice should be informed both by what the audience wants from the brand and what is believable coming from the brand. Remember how weird it was when the CIA launched its Twitter account with this quippy millennial-social voice?

6. What has been the most rewarding by being the person behind the RGA Twitter account?
The most rewarding aspect of being on Twitter as @rga has been the opportunity it has given me to meet and make friends with interesting people I probably never would have met otherwise.

7. Do you have a Twitter account that you follow that you love, if so who!
A thing I love about Twitter is I’m always stumbling across great people. A few accounts I’ve been enjoying of late are @bobvulfov, @carinahsieh, @ziwe.

8. Any last thoughts?
Nope!

Hopefully I can get a chance to sit and meet with him in New York, that’s one of my goals for the trip. Hope you all enjoyed!

-Tylynn Linea Burns