At blogworld expo 2008, I sat in the audience and listened to many panelists, one of them was Scott Monty. At the time, I had only known him from Twitter as the Ford guy. I did not know of anyone at GM, Honda, Toyota, etc… Over time as someone who follows Scott, I have learned a lot of from him, had the odd twitter exchange, even an email exchange once. Above all I just known him as a stand up guy, smart, articulate, social media pro, and yes yes yes, the Ford guy.

Today, @abarcelos tweeted the following

Q3. UR always a personal brand in people’s minds, especially after engaging (I think @scottmonty =Ford). It’s natural in people. #brandchat

We had a few exchanges on this and my point is this on social media folks, especially those who are brand ambassadors such as Scott. What if Scott left Ford, would @scottmonty still = Ford? Would his replacement = Ford? What if Scott went to Kraft, can he now = Kraft, can he do a social media 180 and become @scottmonty = GM ?

Lets start with the easy one first.

Can @someOneElse = Ford. I agree with @abarcelos “people will leave companies. Everyone is replaceable.” And yes with a proper transition, some one can. They need to establish trust and a style with the community, but yes why not.

Can @scottmonty = Kraft. Yes Scott is already established and is trusted, and advocating a new brand may very well be well received.

Can @scottmonty = GM, (and I am not saying he would) I would say tough, I dont see it, that is a total 180 turn, I mean one day you are advocating for a company the next your advocating for a competitor. Isn’t social media about some level of trust? It will take a lot of time an convincing

At the end of the day who cares any way. Sure if a high profile social media personality left their company to any other their circle of followers will be buzzing, Twitterers will Tweet for a few days, some will justify and study the move some will criticize but in the end they will move on, probably by the time Friday comes along everyone is busy polluting twitter with #followfriday tweets in an attempt to gain another follower.

Beyond that, would the average person care or know? Would my brother in law who is just looking for old friends on Facebook know that a brands social media advocate moved? Would they care?

I say no one cares, What do you think?