This is a guest post from Lauren Ginsberg, an Account Coordinator at Racepoint Group. Follow her on Twitter @LaurenGinsberg.
Ah, the old adage, think before you speak… or shall I say tweet. The Redner Group made a huge faux pas when they angrily tweeted at reviewers for publishing not so rave reviews about 2k’s ‘Duke Nukem Forever’. The tweet, “too many went too far with their reviews. We r reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn’t based on today’s venom” left a sour taste that ultimately caused 2k to sack the agency.
Now more than ever, tweeted content is easy to find and just as easy to share. Users must take into account that even if they act on their own accord, like agency founder James Redner did, foul tweets in relation to your client’s product reviews are a direct representation of them as well as the agency.
PR is about getting credible placements for clients, and while we would all love reviews of their products to be positive, we cannot control what someone is going to write. That is the major difference between PR and advertising.
Unfortunately for Redner whose reputation is now tarnished, the lesson was learned the hard way. Moving forward, I bet they will think before they tweet.
This is a guest post by Sarah Willey. Follow her on Twitter @willey774.
For quite some time, police departments have been using social media to push out notifications about missing children. In January, Facebook set up 53 AMBER Alert pages — one for each of the 50 states, along with pages for the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. Interested Facebook users can sign up for alerts pertinent to their individual states. The notifications appear on news feeds as they’re issued, and can also be shared with users’ Facebook friends.
Since going missing last week, friends, family, strangers and even celebrities have taken to Facebook and Twitter to help find Indiana University student Lauren Spierer. Lauren was last seen in the early morning hours of last Friday walking to her apartment. She had reportedly been at a bar Thursday night and then went to a friend’s party. Her keys were found blocks away from where she was last seen, but there’s no other sign of her.
News of the situation was immediately shot out across Facebook: 126,000 people have agreed to attend a Facebook event titled “URGENT! Please help spread the word about Lauren Spierer’s disappearance!” and a Facebook page, find.lauren, has been liked by more than 20,000 people so far.
In addition, 11,000 people have joined a group in her name and a Twitter feed @NewsOnLaurenS which as of right now has more than 12,000 followers. It’s been used to tweet updates, distribute a photo flier, organize search parties and promote a fund set up by the IU Hillel to support search efforts. Several big celebrities have sent out tweets to help the campaign.
I hope it pays for Lauren and her family so this nightmare her family is going can be over.
If you’ve been watching the news lately, I’m sure you’ve seen the Rep. Anthony Weiner Twitter story. In short, he sent a picture of himself to a woman via Twitter. After denying he sent the picture for about a week (he claimed his Twitter account was hacked), Rep. Weiner finally admitted that he did indeed send the picture, but it was meant to be a direct message.
While the details of this story have supplied endless jokes for the late night comedy shows, it also shows that people have a fabricated sense of privacy. How many times have you heard about people mistakenly sending public tweets that were meant to be private, sending photos that weren’t meant to be shared, or posting a Facebook status that was meant to be a private message.
The social media snafus are endless, and a lot of high-profile people have been making them. Politicians, athletes, actors, musicians – everyone has had their fare share of mistakes. And it’s not just limited to people. Companies, such as Chrysler and Red Cross, have been victim of careless Twitter mistakes when employees published their own tweet to the company handle by mistake.
So what does this all mean? I think there are 3 valuable social media lessons we can learn from Rep. Weiner’s Twitter failure:
Learn how to use social media: If you’re not sure how to use the platform correctly, you’ll probably make a mistake.
Don’t be stupid: If you’re sharing something through social media, make sure it’s appropriate. Privacy is an illusion, just because you share something through a private message, doesn’t mean the person receiving that information won’t publicly distribute that content with one click.
Be honest: If you make a mistake just admit it. Rep. Weiner attracted so much more attention to this story by lying about it, which dragged it on for an entire week. If you mess up admit it right away and move it.
This is a guest post from Mandy Miller, an Account Coordinator at Racepoint Group. Follow her on Twitter @AmandaMMiller9.
In our beautiful Racepoint Waltham office, my desk sits next to a window. Even with this scenic ‘advantage’ for weather, I found out about the storms in Massachusetts via WCVB Boston’s Facebook page before the storms even moved into the Boston suburbs.
The tornadoes in western Massachusetts yesterday brought shock to the New England area and nation. The news especially tugs on my heart as I’m a seasoned severe weather vet native of Tornado Alley. Growing up in rural Iowa, we learned of tornadoes from the television or radio (if you still had power), within an hour or even minutes in advance. While I was able to experience the ugly side of Mother Nature first-hand, I was never able to use social media to save lives or connect with others. If your home was still standing, you would see images from across the state and nation hours later on the television or in the papers (yes, the printed ones) the next day. Chances are it was only your small-town community that helped you rebuild your life. Today, with the power of these tools, social media is redefining what our communities are, as well as helping save lives.
During the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, doctors in Japan used Twitter to reach chronically-ill patients, instructing them on where to go to get life-saving treatment after phone networks became inoperable. In the days that followed the tornadoes in Alabama, Facebook & Twitter became an epicenter for people wanting to help, reunions of loved ones, pets and even treasured photos. It also provided public forums to remember those killed in the storms. Today, your community is the world.
Although community and connections are very important in these situations, I’m still baffled at the number of individuals who lose their lives in natural disasters, and have to wonder how many fatalities could be prevented using social media, apps and technology such as weather text alerts available today. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association reported 132 deaths and 750 injuries, with 156 unaccounted for in Joplin, Missouri. If more individuals and families were empowered with the simple tools that alert you of natural disasters and severe weather, I can only imagine further heartache that could be avoided from these tragedies.
Have you been affected by severe weather this year or recently and used social media to communicate and connect with others?
During the first two weeks of May I went abroad on vacation, but did much more then change locations. While I was away I turned off my phone shunned myself from all social networks – including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – and took a break from the fast-paced world of social media.
While I did use the Internet for the basic purposes of looking up directions, train schedules, etc., I thought of these two weeks as a cleansing period, where I could be disconnected from the (social) world. At first it was strange not to be constantly updated by friends and online connections, but after a few days my new reality began to feel normal. However, what I noticed most upon returning home, was the different feelings I’ve had towards Facebook and Twitter.
As I left for the airport I forgot about Twitter almost immediately and didn’t think about logging in until I received an email alerting me of a DM after returning home. Even then, it took three days for me to check Twitter. I’ve also found it awkward to begin using Twitter again after a 2 week hiatus, as tweeting (and mostly, reading all those tweets) feels more like a project then a welcome activity.
On the other hand, I went through Facebook detox the first few hours of my trip, wanting to log-in while waiting for my plane at the airport. While that feeling passed once I was in the air, upon returning home one of the first things I did online was check Facebook, and I spent some time on the site checking to see what friends had been up to while I was away.
Reflecting on my vacation and social media hiatus, I’ve come to the conclusion that Facebook is a much more natural fit to human behavior (at least for me). The way it organizes information and enables people to observe and interact is easy and interesting. I felt like I could easily see what I had missed while I had been away. On the other hand, Twitter didn’t pull me in, at all. It organizes information for real-time monitoring and engagement, and in no way was I functioning in real-time. It took me a few days to catch up to that speed (I’m still not there), and at points it feels like I need to re-learn the fast-paced Twitter environment.
I’m curious to hear from others that have taken a social media vacation, and how you’ve adjusted upon returning home. Please share your stories and experiences in the comment section below.
This is a guest post from Sarah Willey, a Senior Account Executive at Racepoint Group. Follow her on Twitter @willey774.
As @bmfalc described in her post yesterday, most of us were learning about the death of Osama bin Laden in real time through social media. But can you imagine what it must have been like for the man who unknowingly tweeted about the raid on Osama.
It all started from a man in Abbottabad (the town where Osama lived) when Mr. Sohaib Athar, known to thousands of followers as @ReallyVirtual, first wrote about a helicopter hovering above him at 1 a.m., saying it was a “rare event.” That was 3:30 p.m. EST on Sunday. Within minutes, he tweeted, “A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S”. After a while when the sound of the helicopter stopped following a blast, Mr. Athar tweeted “seems like my giant swatter worked !” That was followed by a Twitter discussion about what had happened. He wrote to “@m0hcin the few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani…” Mr. Athar noted that “Since taliban (probably) don’t have helicopters, and since they’re saying it was not ‘ours’, so must be a complicated situation#abbottabad”
Over the next two hours, Mr. Athar, who describes himself as an IT consultant, exchanged messages with a few other Twitter users about what had happened, learning that there was a helicopter crash. They wondered whether it was an attack or an accident.
“And now I feel I must apologize to the pilot about the swatter tweets :-/” tweeted Mr. Athar. He retweeted Ibrar Ali (@ibi2010) , who said: 1 dead and 1 injured in Abbottabad for heli crashed.”
Mr. Athar seems to have gone offline for a few hours, resurfacing this morning to tweet: “interesting rumors in the otherwise uneventful Abbottabad air today.” Shortly thereafter, Mr. Athar figured out what had happened.
He retweeted a tweet from Munzir Naqvi: “I think the helicopter crash in Abbottabad, Pakistan and the President Obama breaking news address are connected.”
Mr. Athar was clearly unhappy.
“I guess Abbottabad is going to get as crowded as the Lahore that I left behind for some peace and quiet. *sigh*”
A short time later, another Twitter user confirmed the news. Mr. Athar tweeted “RT @ISuckBigTime: Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan.: ISI has confirmed it << Uh oh, there goes the neighborhood :-/”
As the Twitter world discovered Mr. Athar’s tweets, thousands of followers have added him to their list of followers. As of 8:46 am EST on May 3, 2011, @ReallyVirtual had 93,321 followers and counting!
RaceTalk was lucky enough to catch mild-mannered Tom O’Keefe (better known as the legendary @BostonTweet) in between burritos and assorted Boston goings-on and convinced him to chat with us for a spell to talk about his Twitterlebrity status, social media in Boston, and some other Tom Trivia.
Prior to our discussion, we asked the Twitter community to tweet their questions for Tom using the hashtag #AskBostonTweet. We got some great response, and have included the timestamps for each question in the video below. Enjoy!
Special thanks to Mandy Miller (@AmandaMMiller9) for her awesome, patient camera work.
1:30 Do you use other social media platforms?
2:17 How do you pitch @BostonTweet?
3:15 People can win Groupons by retweeting your tweets. If they retweet Groupon’s tweets, can they win you?
3:45 Where will @BostonTweet go from here?
5:15 Will you release a @BostonTweet-branded fragrance, a la Britney Spears and Khloe Kardashian?
5:30 What causes and nonprofits inspire @BostonTweet?
6:50 Are there @BostonTweet counterparts across the country?
7:44 How many tweets could a Boston tweet if a Boston could tweet tweets?
7:58 Aside from “I’m @Bostontweet,” what pickup line generally works best on women in Boston?
8:36 Have Twitter followers ended up crossing over to real life friends and colleagues?
9:50 After you die, will you submit your brain to the MIT Media Lab?
Yesterday a study was published that examined which Twitter users are posting the most widely-read tweets. The results weren’t really a surprise, finding that 50 percent “consumed” tweets are posted by just 0.05 percent of Twitter users. Considering folks like Lady Gaga and Ashton Kutcher attract millions of followers (9 million and 6.5 million each), it’s no shock that every tweet of theirs gets a lot more views than tweets by everyone else.
So while there is still a lot of chatter on Twitter – to the tune of a billion tweets a week – the majority of tweets receiving attention are coming from a select group of users that have massive followings but aren’t often following many people back. This type of Twitter handle is a media platform – a way to broadcast news and information to a large audience. But it’s not just media outlets with those types of handles…
Celebrities, athletes, musicians, politicians, companies, etc., all have those types of Twitter handles too, and it’s really their perfect media platform. Instead of worrying about how the media will portray them, they can craft their own tweets (messages) however they want, share only the information they want public, and self-promote without shame. Throw in some sponsored tweets for good measure, and it’s a money-making machine. (In May 2009 I wrote that Twitter was a popularity contest for celebrities. Almost two years later, my statement still rings true).
The evolution that Twitter has gone through, beginning as a small social network and becoming a giant media platform and RSS feed, is not a bad thing. We already have a monster social network in Facebook, and Twitter is a great way to get real-time news and information on any topic. It’s just important to understand that half of Twitter’s attention is going to a very, very small and select group of users that aren’t going to interact with you (and sometimes post a sponsored tweet that will pay them $10K).
Even if you aren't subscribed to the NYT, you'll be able to access their content for free through Facebook posts (like this one)
Last week the New York Times announced a new subscription model that would effectively put up a paywall for many users. Under this new system, people that aren’t subscribed to NYTimes.com are able to view 20 articles a month (that are subscriber-only) for free, before being blocked from reading certain stories. However, there’s a rather big loophole.
The New York Times has confirmed that people accessing their content through Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. will be able to view subscriber-only content even if they’ve already reached their 20 article monthly limit (similar to how you can access articles in The Wall Street Journal for free through Google). With this option in place, with the Times’ subscription model work?
The New York Times has already tried subscription-based access before (New York Times Select) which brought in $10 million in revenue, but wasn’t fully adopted by readers (it had 227,000 subscribers). It has also been reported that executives at the company were split on if a subscription model was their best option, especially since the value of their digital advertisements has been growing steadily.
It’s also been thought that this new subscription was meant to motivate people to sign up for weekend print subscriptions, which would give them unlimited online access. This would boost print circulation, and in return, ad rates.
So what do you think of all this? Do you plan on subscribing to the New York Times?
This morning the Wall Street Journalreported that the New York City Ballet plans to enforce a social media policy for all employees – administrative and artistic – to regulate how they use social media channels.
The ballet has a refined reputation and recently 24 year old, ballet dancer Devin Alberda (@dalberda) has been tweeting his work frustrations, much to the ballet company’s dismay. The Wall Street Journal article describes:
“Plenty of professional ballet dancers have Twitter accounts, parting the curtain on a long-cloistered world with details on their backstage warm-up process or what they’re snacking on during intermission. But some, such as Mr. Alberda, go a step further, posting the kind of workday gripes or jokes dancers might say to each other but that are rarely aired publicly. The company now is negotiating a social-media policy as part of contract talks with the dancers’ union, the American Guild of Musical Artists.”
The ballet’s executive director, Katherine Brown, said in a statement to the Journal: “Because social media usage has dramatically increased and will continue to do so, like many organizations the company is exploring the development of social media guidelines for all artistic and administrative employees with respect to their professional lives.”
If this policy is approved, the New York City Ballet would be the first major performing arts company to enforce such guidelines. The Boston Ballet is also looking into a social media policy for it’s company.
RaceTalk has frequently covered employee Twitter disasters (search our posts by “tweet #fail” to read all the previous posts on the topic) and Devin Alberda’s tweets are just another example of why every company should add social media guidelines to their employee handbook, regardless of industry. As social media channels, particularly Twitter and Facebook, continue to bleed into employees’ professional lives, these types of parameters are necessary.
