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Twitter has one rule that I find frustrating, but completely necessary. Once you are following 2000 other Twitterers, it forces the number of Twitterers who are following you to catch up. When you do achieve an equal balance of following versus followers, you must maintain a 1:1 ratio as you ascend in visibility. As such, I am constantly fine-tuning my follow list to maximize my Twitter time, which I believe increases the quality of my experience, so I don’t mind too much.

When I am itching to follow a new find, I make a beeline to the generic brands for rapid unfollowing action. Having a brand not backed by one person sending tweets is like sending a robot to a cocktail party. I do not hesitate to unfollow a logo.

I have seen media outlets take three different approaches to the logo issue. Many send generic news blasts. Boring. The Chicago Tribune created a Twitter character, Coloneltribune, interesting. I find Businessweek.com’s approach to be most effective.

Rather than having a generic account, John Byrne (@johnabyrne), the Editor-in-Chief for Businessweek.com, serves as the source and advocate for the outlet’s hottest news. He is out there mixing with the people and promoting his work as he should be. To top it off, he encourages all his reporters to serve as Wingmen, retweeting his tweets, as they should be.

I feel like setting up a generic Twitter account is like dragging dirt from the past into our brand new house of communications where we are all on equal footing.

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