3 social media nightmares

I think the Andrews-FedEx kerfuffle shows a couple of important lessons such as:

1 Don't forget that people other than close friends are reading your tweets, and can take them out of context or be offended by them.
2. Be careful in responding to perceived negative statements about your company or something related to your company. In this case, the reaction to the tweet became the story, and I think a lot of people were turned off by what some saw as an overreaction to a tweet about Memphis. In other words, there are some statements that are best left alone, otherwise you ignite the "Streisand effect," defined by Wikipedia as "a phenomenon on the Internet where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized.
3. There may not be bad publicity, even on social media sites, as evidenced by the fact that Andrews got 500 more followers on Twitter.

Great article Susan - really calls out for a social media/digital case study compendium (both good and bad) in order to share learnings. Endorse view that this should be a regular column - engaging and insightful. Thanks! John

Nightmares? How many people actually read these tweets or blogs? How many FedEx employers are from Atlanta and even care? How many that are from Atlanta agree with him?

As for the blogger being paid by Kmart: he gave full disclosure. The egg is on the face of his readers, who kept reader AFTER reading the disclosure. But Susan, you never indicate how much backlash was received, then accuse Kmart of being less-than "social media savvy." What does a "social media savvy" company look like?

But here is where hammer meets nail: "Social media encourages us to be genuine, but individual authenticity may be at odds with our responsibility to an employer." If "us" refers to collective "us" that work for corporations ("employer") then you have to understand that the "employer" also employ lawyers and PR professionals, Stop talking to marketers, especially when the same metrics as other media aren't there.

There are a lot of people that believe that bloggers, newsletter and e-zine publishers were put here on earth to provide them with free information and services all day, every day. True prosperity is based on providing a value for value exchange. So I for one have no problem with people making money, just as I do. It certainly seems he handled the whole situation with integrity.

Thank you for the well written article. It is interesting how the line blurs, especially when you're a SMI - in many ways, people are buying from you. Which makes threading the line between too personal and too business much more difficult.

oh, shoot, Ryan, you are correct. Correction to come shortly

I think its interesting to note that 2 of the 3 cases involved individuals, not companies. And in the 3rd example, the issue involved a large company, but it was really about them NOT fully engaging in social media.

Check your facts, as far as I know Steve Rubel had nothing to do with the writing of "Naked Conversations". Perhaps you meant Robert Scoble or Shel Isreal?

Gordon, thanks for the kind words. Re making it a regular column, I honestly think that we're seeing less and less obvious mistakes. As in every other aspect of online media, people get the message really fast.

John, I totally agree with you that a. None of these qualifies as a "nightmare." (But you gotta give us the sexy headline, hey?) b. Brogan got slammed by people with an axe to grind -- or just twitchy fingers. I tried to make that clear in the article; in fact, I think that marketers may overreact to these Twitter pecking parties. I gave Chris the last word on it, but I would have said it myself: "Bloggers eating their own."

Do you really think Brogan got slammed by the twitterati because he took $ from KMart then wrote about KMart--or because some twitterati have an axe to grind with the outspoken, opinionated Brogan? Cute, demure Julia Roy (who also was chosen by KMart to shop and write) has as big a following, and many of the same followers, and she didn't get slammed. In fact, she's auctioning herself off on ebay right now for twitter-friendly charity called charity:Water. Not sure if Brogan's qualifies as a "social nightmare." To me, social nightmare (if I'm a GM person) is CGC Tahoe ads on Tahoe site shredding gas-guzzling Tahoes by using great, engaging creative and watching your traffic spike.

Great subject. You should make this a regular contribution.
In an arena where everyone can have instant publication of almost any material they choose, it is inevitable that boundaries will be stretched. The challenge for those of us who choose to contribute in these forums may really be the weighing of our impact in the long run. In many ways i think old ideas still hold. Publicity is publicity. Then again, we just saw the facebook TOS backlash. Empowering.