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?

Timing is still everything!

Earlier this year, I shared a bit with you guys about the best time to post to Twitter for clickthroughs.  Click  here to refresh your memory. 

This week, Mashable reported some data on timing of Facebook posts that we social media enthusiasts can try for ourselves to determine if timing really affects how many responses you get. 

But, first, a few tips I found insightful from the same Mashable data.  Granted, some of these seem gimmicky to me, but apparently stimulate a lot of interaction:

•  "Fill in the blank" posts garner 4x more comments than the average post.
• One of the best calls to action is "Caption This!", which gets 5.5x more comments than an average post.  
• Calls to action really motivate responses.  Commands such as "Like this!" "Caption this!" or "Share" get interaction rates almost 50% higher than average. 

Okay, now back to the timing issue.  Get this, the times reported for optimal interaction on Facebook are entirely different than those for Twitter.  The new data shows that weekends and non-peak hours are actually the best times for Facebook posts to generate interaction. So I am posting this today, Saturday, just to follow these new findings! This makes me curious... are these arbitrary numbers or do Twitter users and Facebook users really interact with postings on almost opposite timeframes?  

My guess is that the difference is more people spend time on Facebook on the weekends.  Digitally connecting with friends, making and sharing plans and Facebook stalking area ll great weekend activities.  And Twitter is a favorite of business, political and academic people who would more naturally tweet during the workday. 

How about you, do you interact with posts on Facebook at the same general times as you do with those on Twitter?  How, if at all, does your usage of the two sites differ?

Taking Twitter Too Far...#iDo!?

You all know how much I love tweeting.  I adore posting interesting information and getting tidbits throughout my day from those I follow.  However, even with my deep love of all things Twitter, this might be taking things too far.

NY Daily News reported last week that a couple in Turkey used Twitter to... wait for it... exchange wedding vows. 

Not even kidding here, folks.

Cengizhan Celik and his blushing bride Candan Canik used Twitter to say "I Do"!  Or, to be more accurate, "Evet" (Turkish for "Yes").

Maybe - I stress MAYBE - I would feel differently about this if the couple was separated across seas for work or family or other reasons.  But no!  They were next to eachother, tweeting on the same iPad!

I vote no.  What do you think?  Is this the new normal!?

Whats New With Klout & Why Justin Bieber Hates It!

Have you checked your KLOUT score lately?  This week, the influence-measurement site launched major changes to its platform.  The updates are all reflected in a new algorithm determining the almighty Klout score.  The new scores factor in more data points (now 12 million compared to the previous 1 million) and include your influence on Twitter, Google+, Foursquare, Facebook, LinkedIn, Klout (through +K's received) and, for the first time ever, real-world influence through Wikipedia. 

This Wikipedia element is what some celebrities are finding to be a Klout katastrophe!  Justin Bieber, previously the only person with a perfect 100 Klout Score, watched his score decrease by almost 10 points.  Why?  Bieber has such a huge and cult-like following on Twitter that his score was puffed up beyond his true influence.  Now that Wikipedia is factored into the mix, his score has been humbled to a more realistic (yet still quite impressive) number.  Sorry Biebs, but you are still doing pretty well!

Next step for Klout looks to be a News-Feed like stream they call "Moments".  Keep a look out for that and be sure to check in with me here at Social Media Diva to find out the latest once it goes public!

Has your Klout score changed?  What do you think of the updates?

The Haircut Heard Around The World

 Oh, the world of social media!  Isn't it quite ironic that the day after I post about using Social Media for the good of all mankind, THIS happens.

Yes, my friends.  It's another Celebrity Haircut Heard Around The World.

Not since the Britney Spears Head Shaving of 2007 have we heard this much commotion over a haircut.

This week, Miley Cyrus is sporting a new 'do.  

Quite drastic, yes.  But I think in the picture she looks very cute and spunky!

The real amazement is how the Twittersphere reacted!  Thousands of tweets about Miley's new tresses hit Twitter this week, bringing "Miley Cyrus" to Twitter Trending status for days.

The public really was against the haircut.  That is, until word got out that she donated her hair to cancer patients. 

Miley's defiantly positive attitude was apparent through her tweets; she let the world know that she was happy with her choice.

She gave to a great cause and she seems so happy with it!  I say Rock it Girl!! 

What do you think of the backlash on Miley's haircut?  

Social Media Diva Book Review!

Welcome to the first Social Media Diva book review!  

Today, I am reviewing the New York Times Bestseller: WE FIRST: HOW BRANDS AND CONSUMERS USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO BUILD A BETTER WORLD.  What a title, huh!?  Sounds like my kinda book!   But, you may ask, what’s with the 3 out of 5 star rating?  Well, I will tell you.  

1) Half the book is not even about social media!

Basically the entire first half of the book, or more, hardly touches on social media.  Maybe a brief whiff here or there, but the bulk is much more political and critical of the capitalist economic system.  Now, I am all for reading people's opinions on just about anything, but this felt like a bit of a bait and switch.  The title should give an accurate description of the content of the book.  I do not feel that this title does that.  

2) Hits readers over the head with word play.

I love puns.  I love words and jokes or clever nuances of playing with words.  But I don't love people forcing them into normal nomenclature.  Here, author Simon Mainwaring has coined "WE FIRST" (as opposed to "me first") as a type of thinking.  Great.  A fresh concept and I love it.  But he loves it so much that he can’t stop using it.   "The WE FIRST mentality is...."   "In WE FIRST businesses, they...."  "A WE FIRST nation will only...." He even goes so far as to coin ANOTHER term -- "wedia".  I'm not kidding.  This is a form of MEDIA that has WE FIRST thinking. We-dia.  Has anyone seen the movie MEAN GIRLS?  If so, you'll know the quote, "Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen, it's not going to happen".   I digress. 

3) Saves the best to last.

The good part is that when the book does FINALLY talk more specifics about social media, IT IS GREAT!  I had to wade through the entire book to finally uncover some real gems in the last few chapters. The writer loaded all his best thoughts, information, inspiration into the final chapters.   My favorite was Mainwaring's exploration into the idea of social gaming inspiring new platforms for economic change and aid in third world countries.  Originally, it sounds like a stretch to inspire the general public to go from building a farm on Farmville to one in a struggling nation.  However, Mainwaring neatly puts the pieces together to make a clear picture of how this could be the future of "Social Gaming For Good", and he makes me want to be part of it!

All in all, three stars is not that bad.  The book definitely is worth a read- but, if you are in it for just the social media goods, skip the first half and read the ending first – just like I do with a good mystery!

Another Olympic Death By Twitter

Apparently Swiss soccer player Michel Morganella is not an avid Social Media Diva reader.  Or if he is, he chose to ignore my last post and my advice to think before you tweet!!

Thus, sadly, I have to report another Death By Twitter catastrophe.

On Monday, Morganella was expelled from the Olympics for tweeting an offensive comment after his team's 2-1 loss to South Korea.

He just couldn't bite his tongue (or hold his fingers?) and had to share with the world through Twitter that he wanted to beat up South Koreans.  While the actual Tweet isn't being reported much- translations being reported include slurs such as they should "burn", they are "a bunch of monogloids" and they are "a bunch of mentally handicapped retards".  

ARE YOU KIDDING!?  That is not even a joke.  While ill suited and wrong, you can at least make a mental leap on how Papachristou thought she was being clever last week.  This, however, Morganella's tweet is just blatantly violent.  

Not only was Morganella sent home from the Games, but his Twitter account was deleted and he may be banned from FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association).  

I hope I am wrong, but something tells me we haven't seen the end of Olympic Death By Twitter.