While attending the Custom Publishing Council’s Future of Branded Content conference, I had the opportunity to see John Moore of Brand Autopsy give a great speech entitled “Staying Afloat in Social Media.” (John graciously posted his slides from the presentation on SlideShare.) About a third of the way through the presentation, John compared Whole Foods‘ success on Twitter to the mediocre (if that) success of Trader Joe’s on the same channel. John also talked about Zappos’ successful use of Twitter as a customer service tool, but we’ll get to that.

Basically, John pointed out that Whole Foods has gathered over 280,000 followers, whereas Trader Joe’s has collected a meager 5,000. At the end of the presentation, an audience member asked why Whole Foods has such a huge follower base.

Why Does Whole Foods Have Such a Huge Following?

I think there are a number of reasons: sure they’re very often a featured twitter user, they’ve garnered a lot of buzz about their strategy and success (which feeds on itself), they’ve always been very proactive and aggressive online. But I believe the single reason that Whole Foods is more successful online is because Whole Foods has great content!

When Whole Foods first joined Twitter, they began tweeting about valuable content they’d added to their site. For example, this morning I read:

“Our healthy tip of the week: get your greens! http://tr.im/greens about 14 hours ago”

If you follow the link, you’ll find yourself reading a wonderful little article about the options for healthy green foods. As Whole Foods’ presence has grown on Twitter, their content has been watered down. Much of their twitter feed today is a one-sided conversation in which twitter users are looking for answers to their Whole Foods questions.

Trader Joe’s twitter stream, on the other hand, is full of a lot of nothing. It seems the latest tweets are a series of retweets (not formatted correctly, I might add) that make little to no sense to me. Can you figure them out? Let me know if you can.

So why is Whole Foods more successful than Trader Joe’s? Content. That’s it.

Branded Twitter Experience v. Prosumer Twitter Experience

Now that we’ve sorted that battle out, John talked a little about the difference between a branded experience (i.e., Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s) and a prosumer experience on Twitter (more like Zappos or Dell). A prosumer user on Twitter is someone who is personally identifiable as a representative for a brand, while a branded user is someone tweeting under the brand umbrella. For example, prosumers include ToddAtDell or MikeAtDell, branded users include WholeFoods, TraderJoes, Woot.

I’d argue (and agree with John Moore) that a prosumer approach to developing a Twitter strategy is much more effective and powerful than a brand approach. Why?

Zappos Employees on Twitter

All you have to do is look at the Zappos Twitter employees page: http://twitter.zappos.com/employees

What do you see? Well, as I write this 433 Zappos employees have prosumer identities on twitter. Their collective followers are far greater than WholeFoods’ or Guy Kawasaki’s. They all represent very personal relationships with the brand: instead of a brand broadcasting to everyone, you have a really powerful relationship with PEOPLE that work for Zappos.

Takeaway Message

If you’re looking to get involved (on a corporate level) on Twitter, invite your employees to join Twitter as prosumers. Engage consumers or partners on a more personal level, and increase your reach but also broaden the conversation.

My Question To You

What’s your Twitter strategy? Prosumer or Branded? Why?