Twitter Avatar- Your Logo or Your Face?

It's been asked before why some companies would put their logo instead of their own face on their Twitter account. Some people say that you are your company and therefore, your face should reflect the company account. I help businesses with branding and social media presence every day and there are some reasons why this isn't the best idea.

There are many different types of Twitter accounts. When Twitter is used for business, there are different types you can choose from- business, business corporate, corporate-led persona, business-personal hybrid, etc. So the point is, if you are tweeting from say, your corporate mascot (think the AFLAC duck) then you might use a picture of the mascot, or if your company is known by their brand (Pepsi, etc) then you might use that logo rather than a face.

If your face is not the literal face of your company, then you wouldn't want to use it to represent you on Twitter. Personal accounts, of course, are different and people have their own reasons for what they choose. I use a business-personal hybrid account so I prefer my own face as an avatar because people will recognize it as the same that I use on all sites.

When you think of Walmart, do you see Sam Walton's face or do you see that big yellow smiley or their logo? Branding works differently based on the type of business.

The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers".

There is much more to a brand than a logo or an avatar. In many cases, a person's face is NOT the appropriate way to brand your business. But in terms of Twitter only, if the Twitter account is used to represent a company, then a logo is often more appropriate than a face of a CEO, CFO, President or other company member that the average person would not recognize.

Good examples on Twitter: Netflix, Coca-cola, Radio Shack. Logos rather than faces make more sense for these large brands that have already created a recognizable identity based on their logos.