When it comes to Twitter, I believe all personal accounts should be public accounts.  When it comes to brands, or specifically nightclubs, private accounts may be the way to go.  The openness of social media is almost completely opposite of how club doors are run. It’s time for club offline personalities to match their online personalities.  Here is how to do it.

DELETE ACCOUNT:  Unless a club’s Twitter is wildly successful (most aren’t), delete it, start a new one from scratch and tell all your followers they can potentially follow the new handle.

SET TO PRIVATE:  Go to setting, account, and click off the “Protect my tweets” button.

MANAGE CORRECTLY:  The face of the venue, likely the door person or owner should handle all updates to Twitter.  This same person will also be responsible for picking and choosing who gets access to follow the account.

WHO TO FOLLOW:  Start by following those who support the club, mainly the staff and regulars, and allow them follow you back.  From there, decide how tight you want to keep the following.  The reason a door person is likely best candidate to choose who gets to follow the account is because this is the person who oversees who is and isn’t coming in the club nightly.  Let the door person select people offline and online for consistency.

STRICT DOOR POLICY:  If you’re going to be a rope in front of your Twitter, you better make sure what is inside kicks ass.  There’s nothing worse than getting hassled at the door, getting in and finding out the party inside sucks. The same rules apply for Twitter.  Update frequently by live tweeting from the door and posting relevant happenings to the audience.  Because you’re not letting any yahoo follow the account, it is important to know who is inside so you can highlight and interact on a more personal level in order to create a community or family-like feeling.

If you’re still not sold on private accounts, think of all the undesirable people who won’t get to see and more importantly reply to your tweets.  If only there was a private setting for life.