Should a brand build a single twitter account or ask each of its employees to build their own affiliated twitter accounts? It depends on the brand and why they are on twitter.

I will follow an employee’s affiliated twitter account if they have personality, or if they offer unique insight or access. Their actions do reflect on their company and impact my perceptions of it. In some situations, I have no interest in following an individual’s account. Take the online deal site Woot for example. I don’t care what their product manager had for lunch, I just want a good deal now.

I like Perkett PR’s approach to twitter. Their brand’s account features the picture of everyone who contributes to it. Each one also has individual accounts.

There are other more complicated considerations involved in creating employee-affiliated twitter accounts. Who owns the account? What happens to the goodwill and equity the employee created for your brand when she leaves the company?

In an ideal world, a brand would carefully select, train and celebrate its twitter brand evangelists. While their training would cover a code of conduct and key speaking points, it would also empower twitter brand evangelists to express their unique personality and willingness to help.

Until a brand can be sure that every person tweeting on its behalf exemplifies these qualities, I would stick with a single brand account.

Clive Thompson, ­ NYTimes, suggests that Twitter is a return to the small town:

This is the ultimate effect of the new awareness: It brings back the dynamics of small-town life, where everybody knows your business.

I don’t agree.

Many of my friends who grew up in these gossipy small towns didn’t have a choice of where they could live. And as soon as they had an opportunity to, they moved away. Twitter is different in the sense that the “small town” in which you live is a small town you create.

In small towns the “juicy” information that tends to surface is usually one that their residents had no intention of sharing. There’s a choice in Twitter about what information is shared, and as a result, more control over how you shape people’s perceptions of you.

I recently met a few people who were hyper-vigilant about their personal brand, trying to control what people were tweeting about them and filtering pictures that showed them in social situations drinking, smoking, etc. Perhaps the small town analogy is a better fit here in the sense that you know your social activities always have the potential to be broadcast to people you would rather not know about them.

I prefer cities.

I held Rubber Chicken IV at  Maggiano’s in Boston. 30 guests joined us for an evening of delicious Italian food and many fast yet intense conversations with colleagues and peers. We created an official Rubber Chicken IV soundtrack, as well as “beak breakers.” The beak breakers took some serious time to make; however, I think they helped to provide fuller networking experiences. Since we knew most everyone who joined us, and were aware of their likes and dislikes, we created cards design to help make sure that the right people met and quickly discovered why they were introduced.

For example, a beak breaker might say:

For Bob

• Ask Steve G. for a tip about video blogging
• Ask Jake for advice on time management
• Ask Zach B to share an embarrassing Facebook story
  

Essentially, we helped identify the people Bob should speak with and suggested a few questions to spark meaningful conversation.

The only disappoint for me was the event service Evite. Without my direct knowledge, they sent two reminders to more than 50 people about the event. They also sent a follow up email requesting that my friends and colleagues share their photos. They should know better than emailing my contacts without explicit permission, especially when they are representing that email comes from me. While there are many other services I could use, I think that people are more inclined to open an “evite,” rather than an invitation from a startup with which they are not familiar. If you have another service you like, I would appreciate the recommendation.

 (Image courtesy of Krishna De, from Flickr)Children are less likely to lose touch with their friends because they’re connected by social networking sites from the moment they begin school. This was not the case with my parents’ generation. I recently reconnected on Facebook with a friend from middle school. Within two days, five of my other middle school classmates had reconnected with me. There was something exciting about looking at their profiles to see who they’ve become, how their faces have changed and how their personalities haven’t.When today’s kids grow up, their entire social network will age with them. They will decide who to remove from their networks and how much access to grant those who remain, rather than seeking out old friends. How will this affect their sense of who they are, who they were and whom they consider to be their people?