Mark Pack

Cross-posted from the Mandate blog:

“We’re back. Sorry it took so long” – with that simple message Habitat returned to using Twitter on Tuesday after its unfortunate experience with Twitter earlier this year.

Having been widely criticised before, this time Habitat looks to be working hard to get things right. Immediately following that initial comment – which hits just the right note – Habitat then got stuck in to responding to many other people, using Twitter as a two-way tool.

Messages such as “We’ll try and respond to all @replies but we’re expecting a lot today, so bear with us” have reinforced the message – we’re back, we’re trying to do the right things but please bear with us. Such an approach often brings out the best of people on social media, shifting people away from criticising and towards giving friendly advice when they spot things they think should be done differently or better.

Not quite everyone has been won over, as this tweet demonstrated:

Ha ha ha… @HabitatUK are back after their hashtag fiasco, and trying to follow me. They don’t know me from Adam, so why? Spammers. BLOCKED

It highlights a dilemma for companies on Twitter. Who should you follow, and how will they react to it? Despite the criticism, though, Habitat seems to have a good policy for as their reply said:

We’re only following people who were following us first, or have @ messaged us in the past – sorry if you didn’t want us to.

That is the policy I generally advise people to follow, so best of luck to the Habitat Twitter team that it turns out well for them too.