Corporate Twitter Accounts' Days Are Numbered

Ever sent a tweet to tech support? It beats the heck out of calling, Simon Dumenco discovered recently, when a whining appeal to @sprintcare yielded a prompt, personal, pitch-perfect response. Sounds great, right? Well, don’t expect it to last long, Dumenco writes for Advertising Age, because the current corporate marketer fetish for social media—which is “increasingly overbearing and annoying—is about to turn into a pumpkin."

Right now, companies have ambitious college grads manning their Twitter accounts. “These bright young folks can say things like, ‘Oh, I manage social media for X Corp’—and it sounds pretty cool,” Dumenco writes. “But what they’re really doing is slaving away in a virtual call center.” Eventually they’ll burn out and be replaced by traditional less-than-helpful customer service reps. “Because, let’s be honest, talking to cranky, pissy customers is shit work.” (More Simon Dumenco stories.)