Rule #1: Don't use Tragedy as a Marketing Ploy

Thoughts and prayers going out this week to all those affected by Hurricane Sandy. Tragedies such as this leave many social media users in a sticky situation.  This week, a few companies have been ridiculed for not being sensitive enough to those affected by Sandy.

Possibly the worst offender was American Apparel, who sent an email blast for a "Hurricane Sandy Sale'' - targeting its price cuts to just those on the east coast. Even with the promise of "20% off", Twittersphere did not approve.

Gap followed suit with a slightly less aggressive move, attaching well wishes in the same tweet as a call to action for online shopping. Similar backlash ensued.

Call me naive, but I don't believe that either of these companies had entirely bad intentions when making these moves.  Their vision, however, was short sighted. Tying the company's profit to their sentiment of compassion made them seem inauthentic.  And that doesn't sit well in social media.

A better idea would have been to send the same sentiment but with a promotion donating portions of any online sales that day directly to those affected.  See what that does?  By changing the benefactor of the promotion from the company to those who are in need, you can align the organization with the concern.

 

The line between relevance and self-promotion can be thin.  Do you think these companies went too far?

 

 

Death By Twitter Rampage!

I'm telling you, these Death By Twitter posts will just never end.  This week's offensive ranter is British soccer star Ashley Cole.  England's Football Association- the target of the angry tweet - fined Ashley £90,000 (aka $145,000) for what they deemed bringing "the game into disrepute".  Ashley's rash reaction was in response to an FA commission questioning the evidence he gave in defending his Chelsea teammate John Terry against a charge of racially abusing an opponent.

Per usual, the tweet was deleted soon after its posting.  But we all know in the social media world, you can delete but you can't hide.  Even with its short-lived initial digital presence, the tweet attracted more than 17,000 retweets and countless screenshots around websites.

Unlike some of our Olympic Death By Twitterers, Ashley escaped a ban from the Football Association, but we are still waiting to hear if his Chelsea team will add to the fine or even decide on other kinds of punishment. 

Which do you think is the most effective consequence for these offensive tweets?  Fines or expulsion?  Or is there a better solution altogether?

My name is Social Media Diva, and I approve this message.

 

Ahh, the telltale sign of election season used to be just all those ads on TV!  But this is being called the Social Media Election which means that campaigns now have a huge presence in social media so there's really no getting away from them!  It's going to be interesting to see just how effective these social media campaigns are, and which candidate is doing it better.

I love this new interactive infographic from Unruly. It's the exclusive measurement tool for tracking the 2012 Presidential race's social media video sharing activity. In a fun and engaging way, the display shows the number of shares each candidates' video content receives across blogs, Twitter and Facebook.

Not only is it interesting to see the number of shares (which are updated twice a day until election day) but the site also shows the most shared videos for each campaign. Some are funny, some are serious, some are not so nice.  But with over 10 million shares, it seems to me that social media will make a difference in who becomes our next President.

Check it out here.

Death By Twitter: KitchenAid Edition

 You don't make fun of someone's mom.
That's a given. And I'd argue the same goes for Grandmothers and other caregivers.

Well, KitchenAid broke that rule on a national scale when it tweeted an offensive statement towards President Obama during the Presidential Debate Wednesday night.

As Obama was relaying a story about his late grandmother, KitchenAid's 2400 followers were tweeted the following:
@KitchenAidUSA: "Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! 'She died 3 days b4 he became president."

Ouch. That's wrong no matter what your political view. Of course, KitchenAid has already issued an apology for this "irresponsible tweet", asthe company should. But it begs the continuing question of HOW things like this are still happening!?

According to Cynthia Soledad, head of KitchenAid, the tweet was posted by a member of its Twitter team who mistakenly used the KitchenAid handle instead of a personal handle. Big mistake.

Two main takeaways for everyone watching this gaffe unfold:
If You Tweet For A Company: DOUBLE CHECK EVERYTHING! Even triple check every tweet's handle before you post. Better yet, use different devices for different Twitter handles. These types of mix-ups happen frequently and, on this big of a scale, no mistake goes unseen.

If You Have People Who Tweet For Your Company: You have several choices here. Obviously you need to hold your Social Media teams to a high standard. But you also need to know that these errors happen. It could be wise to set up precautionary measures that may save you big in the long run. First, you could set up a protocol that calls for each tweet to be reviewed by another member of the team before it is posted. Another idea is to provide devices for your teams and only allow company Tweets to be sent from a company device. You also could establish accounts that delay a post for 4 minutes before it is officially tweeted. This could give the sender or a supervisor a moment to review even after the Tweet button has been pressed. Tweet4Me and TweetDeck both offer delay functions.

What do you do personally or professionally to control tweets?