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TweetSmarter offering advice for its namesake

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Twitter’s emergence onto the social media scene also made it an incredibly useful and often crucial tool for public relations and communications. For the same reason, companies or individuals looking to take advantage of this tool should look to put their best foot forward on the outlet.

There’s a handful of people offering help on the matter, actually utilizing the very same medium. TweetSmarter is one of them.

The twitter handle is living up to its title and serving up a constant flow of advice on not only just Twitter, but many other aspects of social media as well.

The account is well renowned and built quite a large following since being created roughly six years ago. TweetSmarter has over 346,000 as of now, which is very respectable for anyone, but among the highest for accounts offering similar advice.

The account has also won multiple awards and been featured on CNN and the Huffington Post.

It was founded by Dave Larson, now CEO of  Oppora, a social media consulting company. He still manages the feed with the help of his wife, Sarah.

This is what Larson told the Huffington Post about the account’s success:

Our plan was to help as many Twitter users as we could. In our non-Twitter life, we are working to set up free web services that help people help one another, and Twitter is an extension of that. Since everything we do is aimed at finding ways to help people, we figured we would eventually reach a lot of Twitter users. But we never expected to be one of the most retweeted accounts of all time! In fact, when TweetLevel — a tool rating users by influence — was released, it listed us as the third most influential user in the world! It’s been pretty amazing. But last year, when we had the the first tweet retweeted over 20,000 times, we knew were on to something.

And they’re not letting up any time soon. The account posted about 40 tweets yesterday alone.

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New Jersey Governor takes to Twitter to aid Sandy preparation and recovery

Monday, November 5, 2012

In just over week’s time, Hurricane Sandy went from forming into a tropical storm near the western Caribbean Sea to dissipating over the northeastern coast of the United States and Canada. It left in its wake what is currently 185 confirmed fatalities and an estimated $50 billion in damages.

In today’s technology and social media age, one of the best ways to communicate the impending danger and resulting relief effort to the masses is through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social media outlets.

That’s one of the many steps New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took in preparation for Hurricane Sandy and continues to throughout the days and weeks after as the state of New Jersey recovers.

Christie’s first tweet regarding the superstorm came on Oct. 26, just four days after it formed.

Sandy didn’t make landfall for another three days.

During that time, Christie’s presence on Twitter and that of his office as the Governor of New Jersey were incredibly apparent. As soon as his office got to work on preparing for the incoming storm, Christie took to Twitter to keep his over 285,000 followers updated. These tweets also informed many area and even national news outlets, which they could then pass on to their readers, viewers and listeners.

His Twitter feed also provided vital preparation and evacuation information via retweets of the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management, the Red Cross, FEMA, and even Jersey Central Power and Light.

Twitter wasn’t the only outlet utilized by Gov. Christie’s office. He’s been very active on both Facebook and YouTube as well. The Governor’s Facebook page has over 84,000 “likes” and just like the Twitter feed, has been updated with posts constantly since awareness arose of Sandy’s potential. Along with the emergency updates, Facebook allowed for many more pictures to be shared for people to really get a visual of the seriousness of what was going on, the resulting devastation across the state, and inside look at the relief effort.

Christie has also posted 24 videos on its YouTube channel related to Hurricane Sandy. All but the newest of which have thousands of views, tens of thousands of views, or in one case, over 200,000 views.

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Chrysler’s social media blunder gets mixed results

Saturday, September 22, 2012

As I’ve pointed out in previous blog posts, social media blunders have become common place in today’s online marketing world. A quick Google search for the phrase offers no shortage of both recent and past incidents.

Twitter seems to make these sort of slip-ups even easier. While it can also be an excellent outlet to communicate with consumers and spread your brand, the many mistakes made by companies and organizations since Twitter’s explosion of popularity are undeniable.

Surprisingly enough, some of these blunders actually offer a mixed bag of results.

Take Chrysler Autos’ Twitter incident from March 2011 for example. The @ChryslerAutos account posted an unflattering tweet about Detroit drivers, topped off with the infamous F-bomb, to its 0ver 7,500 followers at the time.

“I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to [expletive] drive,” read the tweet, though it was deleted shortly after.

Chrysler was quick to offer an apology through the same account.

How did this happen? Well, it was a mistake that still happens frequently to this day. Chrysler admitted in a blog post that the tweet was the result of an employee of the their social media agency, New Media Strategies. The employee likely confused his/her personal account with the corporate account they had access too. The employee has since been fired.

The interesting thing in this case is that in light of the incident, Mashable.com noted that the @ChryslerAutos account actually gained a number of Twitter followers. A year and a half later, the account stands at over 37,000 followers.

Of course, not all of those are a direct result of the questionable tweet. But, I still think the result raises serious questions about how some of these situations can ultimately have a positive impact. Most companies are still probably better off safe than sorry.

Is a minor blunder worth a big jump in followers? For some, it might just be.

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Would you trust your brand with an intern?

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Would you trust your brand with an intern? If your answer to this question is “no,” then you shouldn’t be willing to trust them with your company’s social media.

In today’s modern commercial world, social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are one of the primary ways to showcase your brand online. Managing a company’s presence on those sites is a big responsibility and not something to be taken lightly.

Still, a company or organization might be tempted to hand over the Twitter account to an intern for variety of reasons, whether they think that someone of the younger generation of more tech savvy or even more experienced with all the relatively new forms, such as Instagram and Pinterest. But, as Hollis Thomases points out on Inc.com, technical savvy isn’t the same thing as social-media savvy. In addition to that, Thomases breaks down 10 more good reasons not to leave a 23-year-old in charge of your social media. Things like maturity and communication skills are vital, and probably best left to a professional rather than an intern.

Even with the importance of social media being paramount, Twitter mishaps have still become common place, much to the chagrin of public relations professionals.

Just this past week, for example, an NFL team found itself having to apologize for a social media blunder. It just might have happened because they put someone in charge of their official Twitter account that they shouldn’t have. Travis Wright, a social media manager himself, tweeted a complaint toward the Kansas City Chiefs’ ownership. The response from the official Twitter account of the team, @kcchiefs, was less than ideal. The following was sent as a direct message to Wright over Twitter:

As it turns out, direct messages aren’t always private. Wright shared this on Reddit.com, a social news aggregating site, and it went viral. Many Chiefs fans weren’t happy with how the team’s Twitter account was being handled. There was an apology sent through the same official account, but it wasn’t much better.

“I apologize to the fans for my response to a tweet sent to me earlier,” @kcchiefs tweeted. “No excuse for my actions. I am truly sorry and it won’t happen again.”

Words like “my” and “me” show a clear misunderstanding of how a company’s social media should be utilized. The whole situation is a testament to how right Thomases really is.

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Social Media Privacy – Does it exist? Should it exist?

Friday, September 7, 2012

The easy answer to these questions is no and yes, respectively. Of course, as with a lot of things in life, it’s not as easy as a “yes” or “no” answer. If we really want to examine these issues, we have to take a closer look.

Does social media privacy exist?

For all intents and purposes, no it doesn’t. Privacy on social media is almost entirely nonexistent for a variety of reasons. The first and foremost of which is that nearly all social media platforms are available to the public. That is, in one sense, the point. It’s called “social” media because it’s meant to be social. Most platforms, however, do offer options to make your presence there less public. Sometimes these privacy settings are vague, cumbersome, or  even not as effective as they may lead on. But, still the most prominent issue with social media privacy settings are that the defaults. Those settings are defaulted to favor your profiles being public. And a lot of users never change those settings, especially older generations.

Something that isn’t talk about as often from a social media etiquette perspective but is certainly relevant to social media privacy is the fact that user information is being sold to advertisers. When user agree to a site’s terms of service or EULA, a clause like this is probably buried in there somewhere.

Should social media privacy exist?

Again, the easy answer to this is “yes.” But, ensuring such a thing doesn’t happen on its own, as can been seen with social media’s current state of privacy, or lack there of. At least one state is looking to take ensuring privacy a step further. In the past, the California Senate had proposed laws to make social media’s settings default to private, as well as restricting was user information could be shared. The bill was passed by the Assembly in 2009, but was later vetoed by the Governor. It has been amended more than once, but as lately as 2011. Now California has a new social media privacy bill. This one focuses on restricting an employers right to demand access to social media profiles of both current and potential employees. This bill passed the California Senate unanimously. A Facebook spokesman has even gone as far to say they are not in favor of the employer tactic to demand social media passwords. This is a stark contrast from Facebook’s stance on the previous bill. Perhaps because it’s less likely to affect their own pocket books.

Filed in Social Media | | Comments (6)

Employer ‘Creeping’

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Should employers “creep” on potential new hires or current employees to learn more about them?

Yes, I think employers absolutely should “creep” on potential new hires and current employees, but only to a certain extent. I think that the employees, current or future, have to understand that they may represent the company or organization that they work for. Their behavior can reflect on the company or organization. I think a common rebuttal might be that on social media, such as Facebook, they are no longer “on duty.” Employees do deserve a private life. They should have the freedom to spend their private lives the way that they wish. But again, they have to understand that, even while they may not be within the work environment on Facebook, third parties still view certain kinds of behavior as reflecting poorly on the employer. All I’m suggesting is that both employee and employer are aware of this. Especially when simple things such as changing privacy settings can easily avoid future headaches.

I also feel that a simple Google search or Facebook look-up can honestly help an employer with a hiring decision just by finding out more about the potential employee.

I do think it’s important to note that different jobs, companies, and organizations all have varying levels of exposure through social media, and thus the importance of this can vary a lot as well. For example, a local “Mom & Pop” shop as opposed to a major political campaign.

Do employers have the right to demand passwords to Facebook or other social media sites?

This is where I think it crosses the line. I don’t think employers have the right to demand passwords for Facebook and other social media sites. That seems completely absurd to me. An employer that’s going to demand my Facebook password isn’t one that I’d be interested in working for. I’m not sure how the employers that demanding this sort of thing try justify it. That kind of personal information available on a Facebook account, but is protected by the password, that has the potential to be violated by this shouldn’t even be relevant to the hiring process at all. There are a handful of things that an employer isn’t allowed to ask a potential employee, and these are the same sort of questions that are easily answered if you have their Facebook password.

Is some level of checking up on potential employees on social media acceptable? What do you think?

There’s a balance and I think it has to be found from both sides. Employees have to understand that their behavior may reflect on their employer. But, employers have to grant their employees a respectable amount of privacy.

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