Koozai Twitter Handles

The day has finally come to retire. Retire the ‘Koozai_*name*’ Twitter handles, that is.

When we rebranded to Koozai in May 2011, we wanted to make sure it launched with a bang. There were various methods we used in order to achieve the ‘bang’ and branded Twitter handles was one of them.

Having branded handles for everyone in the company was extremely useful in the months following the launch as it gave the new brand name instant exposure to all of our existing connections and to anyone else watching the conversations.

Before we rebranded, we weren’t really known in our industry but everyone in the team did have a following on Twitter (big or small). This meant that launching the Koozai brand with the Twitter handles (coupled with remarketing as it had only just launched) gave the illusion that we had suddenly appeared everywhere! It looked like Koozai had literally come from nowhere but spread to everywhere very quickly.

So why the change?

Over the last four and a half years we have found that, although in many ways branded Twitter handles can be a great help with brand awareness, there are also a few drawbacks.

Loss of Personality

Any social media account that is tied to an individual is a personal platform. When it becomes a branded account, people are undoubtedly censored from continuing as they typically would from a 100% personal account. Even if this is very slightly. It’s kind of like trying to have a personal conversation with your boss sat right behind you.

Employee Turnover

Employees inevitably move on from the company and, of course, they take their Twitter account with them. We stipulate that they have to change their Twitter handle (to remove the @Koozai_ bit) and any other company branding. The employee still retains all their followers, but followers can get confused as to who the person is and this potentially means a loss of personal branding for the employee.

From a company point of view, when an employee leaves we need to register that old @Koozai_ Twitter handle to protect it from someone else registering it. The danger here is that if a previous employee @Koozai_ Twitter handle got into the hands of the wrong person, they could pretend to be part of our brand and even represent us in a bad light. Luckily, we have a pretty effective process and have never had an issue with losing an established handle – but the risk is always there.

Twitter Trolls

By far the biggest branded Twitter handle related issue is the potential threat of someone setting up an @Koozai_ branded Twitter, making them appear as one of our employees. We have only encountered this issue once but it was still something we had to clear up and monitor moving forwards. It takes a large amount of time and can cause issues if people genuinely believe that the person in question is representing the brand. After all, why wouldn’t they believe it since that is the way we designed it to work?

Moving Forwards

Taking into account all of the above and the fact that we have been operating as Koozai for almost five years now, we have made the decision to stop using the employee company branded accounts. We will of course continue to use our main company brand account – @koozai – where you can keep up to date with all things Koozai and industry related.

Wondering who everyone is now? I am sure that most of the team will keep their company photo (unless of course they wish to change it) so you should be able to tell who is who, but we have also created this handy list of before and after names for you:

Ben Norman was @koozai_ben now @BenNorman

Samantha Noble was @koozai_sam now @SamJaneNoble

Rob Arkell was @koozai_rob now @RobArkell

Hannah Norman was @koozai_hannah now @HangryHannahLou

Andrew Curtis was @koozai_andrew now @Mad_Hollywood

Oliver Ewbank was @koozai_ollie now @Oliver_Ewbank

Dean Marsden was @koozai_dean now @DeanMarsden22

Emma North was @koozai_emma now @MorphNorth

Graeme Benge was @koozai_graeme now @GraemeBenge

Ali Moghadam was @koozai_ali now @AlMoghadam

James Challis was @koozai_james now @JamesaChallis

Luke Monaghan was @koozai_luke now @LukeTheMono

Sophie Howell was @koozai_sophie now @SophieeHowell

Jack Evershed was @koozai_jack now @Jack_Evershed

Sally Newman was @koozai_sally now @Sally_Newm

John Waghorn was @koozai_john now @John_Waghorn

Nicola Churchill was @koozai_nicola now @Coco_Nicol

Jenny Williams was @koozai_jenny now (TBC)

Harry Gardiner was @koozai_harry now @Hr_Gardiner

Ruth Walker was @koozai_ruth now @RuthlessOnFilm

Lucy Stamp was @koozai_lucy now @LucyStamp

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