Florida State Joins The Ranks Of Twitter Failures

Social media screw-ups happen. So frequently, in fact, that it takes some pretty spectacularly bad ones to even generate news around them. And the one social platform that seemingly causes the most problems for communicators is Twitter. In particular, the dangerous concept of a tweet chat.

So it should come as no surprise that today's lesson in what not to do comes from Florida State who decided that when you have a high-profile athlete who was the center of a questionable police investigation of a potential rape and was recently caught stealing crab legs from a local restaurant, the best thing to do is hold a tweet chat for all to have the opportunity to ask what's on their mind. And while these types of social media activities are likely never actually conducted by athlete, but rather a communications team member filtering the responses, a high-profile athlete like Jameis Winston isn't exactly the sharp-minded athlete you want taking on a horde of trolls.

Sure enough, the entire stream of tweets sarcastically asked about the aforementioned run-ins with the law. It certainly wasn't as big of a failure as some of the other social media debacles I've blogged about in the past (Robin Thicke, NCAA, McDonalds, Walgreens, JP Morgan), but I just fail to see how you decide to relinquish so much control of the conversation when it involves such a polarizing subject.

One easy alternative to a Twitter chat that still gives the audience the impression that it is engaging with the athlete is to simply have them send questions to an email address and do a virtual Q&A for an article to be pushed out across owned channels. This prevents trolls from taking over the hashtag and derailing the conversation. The event can still be promoted the week before across all social channels, but by making the questions private, you have control over what is posted and what isn't for all the public to see.

I get that an email Q&A with the fans may not be quite as sexy as a tweet chat. I also think that there is some argument to be made about giving up control of the narrative sometimes to help your audience shape it. But if I am managing communications at Florida State, I'm going to be significantly more careful with how I use Jameis Winston. Because it shouldn't take a rocket scientist to know that Winston has had his fair share of very negative press to match his positive.

Robin Thicke Falls Victim to Twitter Trolls

I want to preface this post by saying that I don't like Robin Thicke. I think he is a colossal tool who wouldn't understand the concept of sexism if it repeatedly stomped on his balls - which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for the human race. With my personal bias clearly stated and out of the way, let's all take a second to laugh at how inept he, his team, and VH1 are when it comes to social media.

I have outlined the potential perils of social media in the past, usually when it comes to Twitter chats. I am by no means a social media expert. I don't claim to be one. But anyone with even a lobotomized brain would know that hosting a Tweet chat with Robin Thicke would be like throwing a gazelle to a pack of lions and telling them to play nice.

So clearly the lack-of-brain-trust that pulled together the Tweet chat with the hashtag #AskThicke had something else in mind when they organized this. But, in a move that surprised absolutely nobody, their plans went awry when Twitter users flooded the Tweet chat with questions about Thicke's misogyny, future rape-baiting hits he has planned and generally what makes him such a clown. The team running the chat lost control within the first few minutes.

Some of the best Tweets:

• Is the creepy stalking thing a sick publicity stunt at your ex's expense, or just a thoughtless grab for attention and relevance?#AskThicke
• When you ask "I know you want it", one presumes you are talking about an STD? #askThicke
• What does it feel like to be an icon for sexism, predatory behaviour and sexual assault? #AskThicke

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Even though I have outlined some other fails on my blog before, I think that this one has to jump to the top of the list for "worst social media blunders ever."

The moral of the story is this: when you are planning any kind of social media activity, you must consider all of the potential ways it could get out of control. When you open these conversations up to the public, you run the risk of other parties taking charge of the situation. Carefully weigh whether or not the return from the activation is greater than the risk. If it is even close, identify a new strategy.

Another Day, Another Social Media Screw-up - Delta Airlines Edition

I have taken a look at some pretty terrible social media screw-ups on my blog in the past and every time I write about it, I always think to myself that it has to be the last time that we will see a major brand botch it badly. Enough articles outlining various social media failures exist at this point that we could create an entire Encyclopedia Britannica of what not to do when engaging with the public on social media.

But, thankfully for us, and much to the chagrin of communications managers everywhere, companies like Delta Airlines still exist and somehow find new ways to remind us that social media is always just a little more complicated than it needs to be.

After the US beat Ghana 2-1 on Monday night, Delta decided that this was an appropriate tweet to send out:

Twitter quickly pointed out that there are, in fact, no giraffes in Ghana. This issue could have been solved if the social media team had taken a collective thirty seconds to Google whether or not giraffes were in the country. Here, let me do it for you.

Sure, everyone wants to be part of discussions on current events. We get that and accept that it must be done. But if you are going to do it, then why stray from the safest possible tweet?

The team should have stopped and asked themselves several questions:

• Will adding the image enhance the tweet in any way? 

I know that tweets with images are more engaged with on Twitter, but did Delta really think that would be the case here? Legitimate question - how is this tweet improved with an image? You can't add an image to a tweet every time and expect it to be better. Show some discretion and pick your spots.

• Okay, let's go with an image. What two images represent these countries? 

Gee, I don't know, what is arguably the biggest thing that the average person uses to identify foreign countries? A flag. The country's flag. Why are you making this harder than it needs to be? You don't stand to gain anything really by being part of this, but you sure as heck stand to lose by doing it incorrectly.

• Why are we selecting these images?

Again, a question so simple and, yet, nobody seemed to have asked it. Because if they had, the group would have Googled whether giraffes are in Ghana and decided to go a different route.

If you clearly don't have your ducks in a row, sometimes it is better to just sit a few plays out than put yourself in a potentially compromising position. And that's a lesson that Delta is learning the hard way.

Your Disinterested-In-Soccer Trolling Tweets Are Grating

Clint Dimpsey scored a goal yesterday in the first 30 seconds of the US's World Cup yesterday. I am pretty sure that the sound waves of the exaltations combined with the jumping up and down may have caused a minor earthquake throughout the entire nation. It was incredible. A picture-perfect start for the US that nobody could have predicted.

After screaming like a mad man and hugging my coworkers, I went to check Twitter to see the collective freakout that normally takes place when historic moments in sports just occur. 90% of the tweets I was looking at were some combination of "OMGGGGGGGGGGGGG", "Holy. Shit." and "FKLDAJEFOIWFIJIAJCD9A38RJMIASDF8" (presumably a pocket-tweet mid-hug). Euphoric is the only word to describe what everyone around me was feeling and clearly the sentiment was shared by millions on social media as well.

And the other 10%? Well, have you ever had one of those friends that goes out of their way to be disinterested in something that you care about deeply? The type of people that will sit there and passive-aggressively mutter snide remarks? That, unfortunately, was the remainder of my Twitter feed.

I get it - soccer isn't for everyone. Some think it is slow and boring. Others hate all the flopping. Most just don't understand it.

But the World Cup is every four years and it is pretty easy to avoid it if you aren't interested in it. So is it really necessary to sit on Twitter and be the biggest contrarian possible by subtweeting or blatantly tweeting about not caring that Clint Dempsey just made history? Because if millions of people from a melting pot of backgrounds can be brought together by one month of soccer every four years, the event has to be somewhat important. So it seems like you could probably just keep your opinions to yourself.

And, sure, rooting for the US once every four years in the World Cup is super trendy and most will stop caring the moment the US is out. But isn't that the exact same as the Summer Olympics? Or the Winter Olympics? So if you can enjoy the Olympics, you should at least be able to understand how others can do the same for the World Cup. That's a good enough reason to just keep your fingers off that send button.

Stop Screwing Up Social Media - It's Just Not That Hard

"I know what will really inspire our brand ambassadors," said generic social media "expert" at large corporation. "We need to give them something that they can tag themselves with and declare their loyalty to our company in an effort to convert others to our services. What we need to do is give them a hashtag on Twitter!"

"Dead on!" replied slightly more junior social media "expert." "This way the people can simply send out a Tweet and all of those around them will see how dedicated they are to us and our community will grow!"

You know I would have thought that this conversation stopped taking place several years ago given how obvious it is that:

• It is a lazy comms strategy
• Personal testimony over Twitter is simply a one-time act - not likely to occur again outside the one time the hashtag is created
• Any brand that could have alienated its users at some point has now given control to those users by opening up the world of social media to the conversation

McDonalds screwed this one up pretty badly when it invited everyone to share their #McDStories (gee, wonder what could have possibly gone wrong with that one?). J.P. Morgan also blew it with their chat to #AskJPM a question, leading to a hilarious series of tweets asking how one goes about blowing up the global economy as effectively as J.P. Morgan helped do. Roger Goodell is no stranger to controversy with how the NFL has handled the lawsuits that former NFL players are bringing in droves that accuse the league of knowingly withholding information on the dangers of playing football, all while trying to add an additional regular season and playoff game to the mix for some more cash for the league. So maybe it wasn't the best idea to give fans (and players) an open forum to #AskCommish anything they thought was important.

#AskEmmert with the NCAA's embattled commissioner Mark Emmert was hijacked. So was #RedskinsPride - the Washington Redskins effort to combat Harry Reid's crusade to force the team to change its name. 

Even what should have been a safe #ILoveWalgreens hashtag was taken over by an unruly social media mob. If your neighborhood drug store isn't a sure bet, don't you think that that might be a sign?

These are all very high-profile businesses here that are really screwing up a comms tactic that isn't that hard. And the reason it isn't that hard is because you just don't do it. I can't think of any time, any brand, in any part of the world that wouldn't run the risk of getting taken over like those mentioned earlier.

I'm not saying don't engage with fans on social media. But the hashtag pride strategy needs to stop. Control the forum and you can help control the message. Send it into the wild and your Twitter hashtag will mutate into an uncontrollable beast.

The Birds Attack J.P. Morgan, Twitter Edition

Twitter, for better or for worse, has forever altered the way that humans connect with one another on a daily basis. It took the basic concept of the text message and changed it from a private conversation between two parties into a public platform for all to spread their opinions.

This, in turn, brought corporations into the social media fold as customers would be frequently tweeting away about what they loved and, more commonly, what they hated about about the brands. Twitter serves as an excellent medium for customer relationship management for brands: an opportunity to directly connect with unhappy customers to address their concerns and transform them into brand advocates. At least, that's what effective social media management looks like for a large brand.

But for some companies, consumers spit so much vitriol at them that no matter how much the brand communicates with them, its image cannot be fixed. This is where the strategy around how a company uses a tool like Twitter. Marketers and PR pros have to look carefully at a company's position in the eyes of the media, the consumers and its competitors to help dictate its social media strategy.

Clearly, J.P. Morgan missed the memo on this lesson. Right in the middle of its settlement negotiations with the US government over its role in the 2008 financial crisis (which ultimately resulted in a $13 billion settlement), the team at J.P. Morgan decided that this would be a good time to host a Twitter chat with its vice chairman, Jimmy Lee.

Call me crazy, but people don't seem to like banks very much since 2008, do they? And I don't exactly think that this is uncommon knowledge. So it should come as no surprise that thousands of individuals descended upon the Twitter chat's corpse like vultures and picked it apart so badly that J.P. Morgan ceased the chat right in the middle of it. But the damage was already done by the time they stopped it. They completely lost control of the situation.

J.P. Morgan, in its defense, isn't the first major brand to have a screwup like this. McDonalds experienced a similar crisis when it tried to start a chat with the hashtag "McDStories". It was quickly hijacked by various groups that used the social platform to bombard the brand with its grievances. Just like J.P. Morgan, McDonalds had to stop the chat almost immediately. The fact that J.P. Morgan committed the same exact social media sin after all of the negative whiplash that McDonalds saw from this makes it all the more embarrassing.

Customer relationship management is a tricky business. Don't engage with customers and they complain that you don't listen to them. Listen too closely and you just might not like what they have to hear.

But when it comes to brands like J.P. Morgan, giving consumers a vocal platform where many voices can drown out one may not be the best option. If the company's intention was really to target students in particular, as they claim, set up a series of seminars on college campuses and have local leaders appear there to speak with the students. While it may require slightly more money and time, it is in a situation that the company can control.

Twitter really has changed the way that we interact. But that changes means different things to different parties. Brands that want to communicate with their consumers or spread a message must closely examine the inherent risks that these changes have brought and weigh the benefits against them. Otherwise their carcasses will be picked clean by the flocks of tweeters above them.