From the BlogSubscribe Now
I recently appeared on “St. Louis Presents” on STL-TV with hosts Rob Desir and Aprille Trupiano to discuss Twitter. These two were a delight to be with, and both were very interested in using Twitter in a more enhanced way.
Thank you Ellen Soule for bringing this opportunity to me!
My appearance begins at the 40:40 mark – click here to be taken directly to that point. I’m done by around 47:45.
Was this just an honest mistake? A plucky young intern that just didn’t know what they were doing? Or was this an attempt to make news, to capitalize on tragedy and the resultant Twitter Trending Topic? You be the judge. I don’t even know what to think anymore.
It’s exceedingly hard to imagine anyone would purposely tweet this on a day like today. (For posterity’s sake, there was a horrible mass shooting in Aurora CO at the premiere of the newest Batman movie).
The tweet embedded, until they delete it:
#Aurora is trending, clearly about our Kim K inspired #Aurora dress 😉 Shop: celebboutique.com/aurora-white-p…
— Celeb Boutique (@celebboutique) July 20, 2012
In an admittedly pointless attempt to keep this sort of thing from ever happening again, spread it around like mad on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook and LinkedIn, and make this company feel shame. And I’d like to hear what you think in the comments below? What was the true intent of the Tweeter here?
UPDATE – apologetic tweets from Celeb Boutique
My final take: it appears to have been one big colossal mistake. Their PR is not based in the United States. While this tragedy is likely a worldwide story at this point, it’s entirely possible their social media people had not heard about what happened.
For readily apparent reasons, I advise you to not ride the coattails of a Twitter Trending Topic without understanding why the term or phrase is trending. Things trend for both good and bad reasons. Once click on the trending topic “Aurora” would have shed some light on why it was trending. Sometimes it’s hard not to go 500 miles an hour when using social media. My best advice is to be extremely careful with your brand, even if it takes an extra 60 seconds to do some rudimentary research.
Faith in humanity: at least partially restored. Thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Aurora, CO.
For a brand like Miracle Whip, and a company like Kraft Foods, just what IS the proper response to such foul, hateful tweets?
A.) Say nothing at all. This seems to be the choice most corporations would make in this case. Very few people saw the guy’s tweet. There is no point in responding.
B.) Invite the hater to contact a toll-free number to resolve the problem. Funny, I see companies doing that too, and in this case that would be a completely wasted, out-of-touch tweet. This tweeter does not have a solvable problem with Miracle Whip or Kraft.
C.) Say something back that’s sort of snarky, which in this case is what Miracle Whip or the agency tweeting for them did.
I’m kind of liking “C” here. I have no problem with their response, and actually think it positively inures to their brand’s bottom line. What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments below.
I know there are various versions of this floating around the web. I like this one because:
1. It involves donuts.
2. It includes newer sites like Pinterest and Instagram
3. The G+ one is funny and unfortunately true (I’m still rooting for you Google+!)
Source: Three Ships Media. I originally received it via a Falk Harrison coworker’s email.
I like Google+. I think they’ve built a nice service, certainly eons ahead of Buzz. But Google+ has a problem. It’s called “173 > 3.” Not enough people are using it. I think competition is healthy (keep Facebook honest), so I sincerely hope G+ gains a stronger usership. Note that I did not say more “users,” which is a metric social platforms often cite. It is irrelevant how many people have signed up for the service. All of those people with Google+ accounts are currently over on Twitter and Facebook. Larry Page recently said Google+ has 90 million users. Have any of you asked the same question I have when using Google+: Where is everybody? (echo, echo…..)
I was talking with Jason Williams at lunch and told him my litmus test for Google+: I want to be able to say something meaningful on Google+ and get some kind of response within 5 minutes. Either a reply comment or a +1 would do. I can get that on Facebook. I can certainly get that on Twitter. I was getting that on Google+ when it debuted, because we were all on Google+ trying it out. Daily social media users are not sufficiently using Google+.
REALLY AWESOME POSTSCRIPT
After completing my blog post, Marc Brooks brought this doozy to my attention (sorry, ignore the repeat of the image above):
@RizzoTees … that’s nothing… how abut 924K > 794 for the VW Star Wars Invite twitter.com/IDisposable/st…
— Marc Brooks (@IDisposable) January 19, 2012
Yes, as of his screen capture, 924,000 people had Facebook liked the VW Star Wars Super Bowl invite, and 794 had +1’ed it. That’s over 116,000% more Facebook likes than +1’s. Google Hangouts are quite amazing, integration of Google+ in search results is neat, but these numbers are surely causing consternation at Google.
REALLY AWESOME POSTSCRIPT 2
This is bad:
Users spent an avg of 3 mins on Google+ in Jan. Compare that to 89 mins on tumblr and Pinterest, 405 on Facebook. on.wsj.com/xcBEQI
— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) February 28, 2012
It sucks that I am still able to write a blog post like this in 2012! Here’s some recent social media engagement from Vinos Finos Cafe in Raleigh, NC:
After @Nick314 brought this to my attention, we tweeted back and forth a bit about it, including a few others in our conversation. Scott Stratten (@Unmarketing) called it a train wreck and a perfect example of how not to tweet. After this discussion, in which Vinos Finos Cafe was included, and in which we were kind but direct as to how we felt about their inappropriate social media effort, I received this tweet from Vinos:
And you can see I responded. Will it ever end?
May I point out that I love Scotts Turf Builder lawn products? May I also point out that, when you’re doing your all-important “listening” on social media, be sure to get the banana out of your ear. This tweet exchange between Mitch Joel, Scott Stratten, Amber Brooks and Scotts Lawn Care’s social media team is just so wrong.
Amber is referring to Scott Stratten in her tweet but fails to use an apostrophe when she types “Scotts step by step process.” Scotts Turf Builder feels a discussion about lawn care is taking place and jumps in with a toll-free number.
Do better next time!
P.S. Mitch and Scott were tweeting about something rather serious. Please consider buying the book “End Malaria,” where $20 of the $20 purchase price ($25 for paperback) goes to buying malaria nets that save lives.
[blackbirdpie id=”111442715903922176″]
Rather awesome postscript – the tweet below came through from Scotts the day after. A worthy response by Scotts – well done
[blackbirdpie id=”111842990095466496″]
