“Yes, one individual may have many Twitter accounts — a Twitter account does not even need to be “owned” by a human being.” Bot-run accounts like MuseumBot, CongressEdits, and every word are examples of this. Those accounts are controlled by the bot creators, and those creators often have their own Twitter accounts.
So, rather than delving into the legalities of creating several accounts, I’ll provide some suggestions for accounts you might create.
Before we get started, there’s one thing you need to think about: the amount of time it will take you to manage several accounts. In many instances, you’ll want your accounts to serve enough different objectives to avoid treading on the same terrain. If at all possible, you should be able to delegate responsibilities. This is why many secondary accounts are service-oriented since they do not need active engagement and effort in order to post.
There’s nothing stopping you from creating a personal account if you have another kind of account. In fact, you may gain a jump start on followers and interaction by notifying followers of your other account of the existence of your personal account. One of the most frequent examples I’ve seen is when a brand’s owner establishes and promotes their own account. The bot account that advertises who developed it comes in second.
A brand primary account comes in second to personal accounts. Companies keep track of their finances. These accounts often provide information about the business, product updates, maintenance and downtime notifications, alerts, and other useful information. They also share blog articles and, ideally, they share and comment on other businesses’ material. Running a brand account requires a lot of effort, and this isn’t the place to discuss it.
I’ve seen companies use Twitter to recruit new workers, highlight specific employees and their accomplishments, and even poke fun at one another.
Individual Website Accounts If you disregard the top two being two sides of the same coin, this is one of the most frequent reasons for a secondary account. Entrepreneurs often create a personal account for themselves, then separate accounts for each of their businesses. If I owned BrandA and BrandB, for example, I could have three Twitter accounts. One would be my personal account, another would-be Brando, and still, another would be BrandB.
The more websites you have, the more jumbled this becomes. You’ll soon run out of steam if you’re attempting to establish a social media presence for a big number of websites. It’s true that maintaining a successful Twitter account requires a significant amount of effort. As a result, many entrepreneurs see their tiny brand accounts as nothing more than RSS feeds, while their main personal account is where the actual action takes place.
A Customer Service Account Any company of reasonable size, in my view, should have a customer service account. Small companies with just one person managing everything through email or chat don’t require one, but they may handle it via direct messaging on their primary account. When your primary brand account has grown to a suitable size, you will get too many alerts and messages. A dedicated customer service account is required.
Fortunately, creating and managing such an account is simple. You can automate much of the job using one of the numerous Twitter management programs, but you’ll have the benefit of having all of the data and analytics in one spot. When everything is maintained in one location, apart from your promotion, it’s simple to monitor how many tickets you’re selling and how effectively you’re assisting customers.
Regional Franchise Accounts This one is usually reserved for franchises with a large number of individual, local branches. Banks could accomplish this, but most prefer to have a single centralized authority. Individual restaurants, usually smaller chains with a half dozen or so mainly autonomous locations, are the most frequent businesses I find utilizing these accounts. The concept is that each one may have some autonomy, but they must all adhere to a certain amount of consistency and message from corporate headquarters.
The franchise account technique is not used by most big national companies since it is time-consuming. They must commit their social media presence to a large number of individuals, some of whom may or may not be adept at it. Then, if one of them makes a mistake or has their account hacked, it looks poorly on the whole organization.
An Experimental Bot I linked to a few bots at the beginning of this article, but they represent just a tiny portion of the total number of bots available. I’ve seen everything from procedurally produced text projects to Microsoft’s doomed Tay experiment to responsive bots that tweet flight information back to individuals who are interested.
The problem with bots is that you can only utilize them in so many ways. Twitter has some very stringent restrictions against bots and automation, which you can read about here. Rather than doing anything possibly abusive or in violation of Twitter’s terms of service, you should be doing something unique and useful.
A Content Digest Account I suggested them as a solution for small companies that don’t have enough staff to manage a social media account, and I’m not a big admirer of them. The problem is that they’re just too dull. You’re losing out on a lot of value from Twitter if following your Twitter account and following your RSS feed are functionally similar.
If I had to choose between a content digest feed and nothing at all, I would choose the digest. It’s a good beginning point, and it can still help you get some followers, but it won’t help you with engagement or conversions. The point is, it creates a Twitter use history, which you can expand upon if you have more resources.
By comparison, an Industry Curator Account is a very comparable account with a much wider appeal and the potential for a lot more value. I’m thinking about starting something like “The Daily SEO” and monitoring the best SEO blogs I’m aware of. When a new post is published on one of those sites, I will promote it for free using that account. Of course, I may advertise my own material inside the stream of other stuff, and it will blend in seamlessly.
The primary benefit of this account is that it draws value from a diverse range of sources, attracting all of them as influencers who will help you grow. You can acquire a lot of clouts if you publish a high-quality digest, which is one that doesn’t publish everything that comes up.
Then, after you’ve built up enough of a following, you can set up a submission procedure for sites you don’t presently monitor, where they pay you to be considered for the feed.
A Parody Account Parody accounts are excellent, but only if they are done correctly. It’s difficult to create a parody account that doesn’t cross the line from satire to real harassment or abuse.
On the bright side, there are profiles like Not Mark Zuckerberg, which make fun of social media in general and Facebook in particular. Emo Kylo Ren takes the Star Wars character’s adolescent angst and amps it up to 11 in 140 characters or less. They’re usually lighthearted and entertaining, and they never insult, harass, or disparage individuals or groups of people.
On the other hand, there are accounts like Biii Murray, which try to be amusing in the manner of Bill Murray without really being amusing. It’s sad that it has half a million followers. That doesn’t even include the real abusive accounts, which I won’t link to for obvious reasons.
Parody may help you increase your Twitter following, but it can also help you ruin your reputation or be banned.
Opening several Twitter accounts may be a poor idea for a variety of reasons. If one of these is the reason you’re thinking of adding another, you should definitely rethink what you’re doing on the site.
An Account to Get Around a Ban The most common reason individuals create accounts (when they shouldn’t) is to get around a ban by using a new account. It’s not like you’re trying to deceive people on Twitter. They know who you are since they can see your user agent, location, and IP address (among other things).
Even if they don’t ban your second account right away, it’s likely that they will ultimately discover and ban you. Of course, part of this is due to the fact that the kind of individuals that get themselves banned can’t help but be themselves, and it’s more their attitude and the sorts of things they post that get them kicked off.
Wrap Up
An Account to Harass Individuals Anonymously This one should be self-evident, and I doubt that the people reading this article are the same kind of others that wish to harass or trash speak people on the internet behind a veil of anonymity.
