paidContent - Twitter Report Card: Tony Hsieh
This story was written by Tameka Kee.
Whether you like it not, Twitter is changing the way people communicate, and digital media companies are eager to harness this new tool. Every week, well look at a different Twitterer, from the biggest celebrities to small-town beat reporters, to see how adept they are with this emerging medium.
Name: Tony Hsieh twitter.com/zappos
Affiliation: CEO of Zappos.com
Following/follower ratio: Follows over 407,000 peoplehas almost 870,000 followers.
Average number of tweets per day: About two.
Is there a real conversation? Not at all. Hsieh follows a staggering number of users, but doesn’t respond to them. He gets away with it because his tweets are an entertaining mix of status updates and quotes infused with a distinctly Gen-X humor. Like this one: “I want to go to sleep at my hotel but the sheer number of pillows is intimidating” (complete with a picture). Or this one: “Dropped my laptop on floor this morning. I usually drop my phone, so good to know I’m moving on to bigger and better things.”
Our assessment: Zappos.com has been lauded for its personable corporate culture, and Hsieh’s tweets reveal just how much of that brand equity originates with its CEO. Follow him if you want to laugh out loud at least once daily. The main thing that’s lacking is a little more interaction, like an occasional retweet of what one of his followers posts—or, god forbid, a reply. Meanwhile, if you want news about Zappos.com or have a customer-service query, there are better accounts to follow for that.
The grade: Hsieh gets a B.
By Tameka Kee