The Articulate CEO

2012's Worst Corporate Twitter Blunders

Ryan Holmes, CEO at HootSuite has come up with his list of 5 of the year's biggest corporate Twitter blunders and some thoughts on how the right technology and some basic training could've helped. 2012 may have been the year big businesses finally took the big leap toward embracing social media but it’s also produced some of the most disastrous tweets in corporate Twitter history.

Here then, is Ryan's top 5:

1. Insensitive employee tweets a presidential low-blow

On Oct. 3, in the course of the first US presidential debate, President Barack Obama mentioned his grandmother, who died just days before he took office. Moments later, this tweet went out to KitchenAid's 24,000 plus followers. As outrage flooded in, KitchenAid went into apology mode, explaining that an employee mistakenly sent the offensive remark from the corporate handle, rather than his or her personal account.

Sadly, this kind of account mix-up happens all the time. Heavy Twitter users often post to multiple accounts, switching back and forth on the fly. Mistakes are inevitable. That’s why leading social media management systems like HootSuite now prompt users with a special window before they publish to designated, high-profile accounts. Setting up these so-called secure profiles is often all it takes to avert a Twitter meltdown. 

2. Major supermarket chain tries to cash in on Hurricane Sandy

There were an appalling number of  insensitive tweets surrounding deadly Hurricane Sandy. Gap, for instance, encouraged followers to weather the storm by staying inside and shopping on the store's website. But the most spectacularly inappropriate tweet comes from Canadian supermarket chain President’s Choice. The above message linked to a Halloween recipe for marshmallow bloodshot eyeballs, made by slicing marshmallows in half and placing a grape in the middle.

This comes down more to a lack of common sense than a lack of Twitter savvy. Joking about death and tragedy - or using it as part of a sales pitch - isn’t acceptable in normal conversation. It’s certainly not acceptable on Twitter.

3. Fashion retailer riffs on Batman shooting

Hours after the deadly theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., during a Batman movie, UK-based CelebBoutique sent the above tweet. It was left up for an hour before being hastily deleted in a hail of angry comments. According to CelebBoutique, their PR people were totally unaware of the shooting when they sent the tweet. The Twitterverse, however, was not sympathetic.  

When delegating tweets to outside agencies, contractors or even junior employees, assign them limited permissions. Drafts can be fed into an approval queue to be vetted by senior management before publishing, avoiding this kind of PR disaster. 

4. A CFO tweets too much, too soon

Francesca’s, a clothing retailer with stores in 44 states, started the year on the wrong foot when its CFO sent out this tweet after a confidential meeting on March 7. The problem is that Francesca’s is a publicly traded company. The CFO disclosed company info to his followers before it went public, thus sharing inside information - a violation of long-held SEC regulations. He was promptly fired.

Regulated industries - finance, healthcare, insurance and many others - face strict rules governing what they can and cannot communicate to the public. Social media is not exempt. Every firm should have a social media compliance policy and a social media management system that can archive all messages in the event of an audit.  

5. A fashion model posts racist photo, then follows up with ignorant tweet

While in Korea on business to celebrate a new store opening there, a male model for Abercrombie & Fitch clothing label Hollister tweeted a picture of himself smiling, squinting his eyes and giving the peace sign. To top it off, when followers called him out on the offensive gesture, he responded with, “Hahahaha they ruhhvvvv ittt!'.” Korean media picked up the story and furious locals initiated a campaign to boycott the store.  

We must all accept the reality that social media is a public forum. Nearly everything posted on Twitter and Facebook becomes part of your digital footprint - potentially viewable not just by friends but by employers and the public at large. In this case, it’s crucial that companies have a social media policy and share it with employees. First and foremost, emphasize that tweets are public by default and messages sent over Twitter - even on private accounts - may ultimately reflect on the company.  Many social media management systems for businesses include online tutorials that hammer this point home.  

The tragedy is that all of these embarrassing and damaging tweets could have been avoided with a little social media 101 and the right social media management system. Some simple preventative measures would have spared a lot of apologizing, not to mention angry customers and possible lost revenue.

The Golden Rules of the 'Elevator Pitch'

Elevator pitches remain as critical as they have ever been - perhaps even more so given the increasingly short attention span we all seem to have. Here then is some good advice on how to create your own elevator pitch from Toby Marshall at Lead Creation.

1. A great ‘Elevator’ provides just enough information to hook the listener in and spark a conversation. It is just the beginning, not the close; think lead generation not sales.

2. It should be short—10 to 20 seconds. Our attention spans have become shorter due to fast-paced city living and Social Media.

3. Practice it by speaking out loud and standing up—never just write it and read it to yourself. Say it again and again in front of a mirror; then with colleagues or friends. Say it 20 times and you’ll then know it enough to improvise and vary it so it comes alive and doesn’t sound stale.

4. An ‘Elevator’ is not just for sales people or business owners. It’s also for people who have jobs and want better ones—that’s most of the population!

5. A great rule of thumb is to only use your ‘Elevator’ when asked the question. If you walk up to someone and start talking about yourself it’s usually a big turn off; most people would say something like “so tell me about you.”

6. Sell yourself, not your product or business. The other person needs to be interested in you before they will buy anything from you. The old adage that ‘People buy from people they like’ still rings true for B2B marketing

7. Elevators are never about closing a sale, despite the name ‘pitching’. In this Social Networking age, blatantly selling is less and less acceptable. Even at Chamber of Commerce meetings—a pure business setting—I run a mile from people who are all about themselves. Life’s too short!

8. It’s NOT your cold calling script (if you are still foolish enough to be doing cold and not ‘very warm’ calling!)

9. Use pauses to emphasize; it is not a race to get the words out. Vary your tone as speaking in a monotone bores people—it’s very common though, possibly because they themselves know the words are boring!

10. If you are in a business setting, think about how you can help the prospect achieve their goals. That may be the breakthrough you are looking for with your lead generation—thinking about the implications for them?

Note that there is nothing in the above about providing a case study. In my experience they will ask me if they are interested, once they have heard my ‘Elevator’. Also, including studies that are meaningful makes it too long, and you are likely to see their eyes start to glaze over! Just have a couple ready to go in case they ask, though.

The above rules will help you see much better results with your lead generation in all types of social and business settings; learning to change the pitch depending on who you are speaking to, and where you are speaking to them, is a huge advantage to you and your business.

Facebook - The Communication Tool That Can't Communicate

Why is it that every major Facebook change seems to also be a major public relations disaster? With Mark Zuckerberg, the darling of mass media, considered some sort of business guru, you would think that there would be a little more thought that goes into the company's approach to privacy, major user interface changes, and how those are communicated to the very people those changes affect.

When it comes to innovative ways to enhance or expand the Facebook experience, Mark Zuckerberg and team seem to be well ahead of the curve. But when it comes to communicating what it’s doing, Facebook seems to stuck in the stone age.

Admittedly, they do a good job getting news and information to members of the press and blogosphere who can share details of announcements to broader audiences but why isn’t anyone at Facebook talking to the members themselves? Why doesn’t anyone at Facebook ever send an e-mail to inform members about problems and how they are being fixed? Why doesn’t anyone at Facebook write up some guidelines on how to address changes to things like privacy settings? Why doesn’t anyone at Facebook post an alert on members walls to let them know that something important needs their attention?

Instead, what seems to occur is that you have to rely on your 'friends' to post information about any problems or changes and, inevitably, some of that information will be incorrect or incomplete. That makes for a very frustrating experience

Too often, Facebook fail to provide documentation on how to use new features and turn everything on by default without notice. The company posts something on its fan site and assume that every member will see it. It needs to treat its members with a lot more respect. It should be sending each of its members a link to information - either in their walls or in their inboxes - so they can easily find it and, more importantly, so that they get the correct information.

I am not a user, but the fact is that Facebook is a communications platform and the changes that are made to their interface immediately and drastically affect millions of people - people that don't have a choice in those changes. That kind of impact requires complete and deliberate transparency when communicating with your customers not the 'guess-what-we-just-did' approach Facebook appear to favour.

Communicating Your Social Status Online

Given how important status symbols are in the real world it was kind of inevitable that they would start to be seen in the virtual world as well.

Being connected is suddenly seen as the thing to be and what started with showing off the number of visitors to your Flickr page or Wordpress blog now also encompasses the number of your Facebook friends, Twitter followers, YouTube Channel subscribers, LinkedIn connections and a host of other measures that tell the world you are tech savvy.

According to trendwatching.com, in the next 12 months you can’t go wrong supplying your (online-loving) customers with any kind of symbol, virtual or 'real world' that helps them display to peers their online contributions, 'interestingness', creations or popularity.

Just as people like to be seen consuming luxury products to show off their wealth, or driving a Prius to let us know they care about the environment, they also like their virtual offerings to be somehow recognised.

As more and more people invest in building a digital brand such as their own blog or online diary you can expect to see a greater demand for all sorts of digital endorsements of that brand.

Interestingly, one extra element to watch out for is new status symbols that straddle the 'real' and 'online' worlds.

From physical manifestations of digital status (think personalised Facebook and Twitter memorabilia), to online recognition of physical activities (status updates or badges based on real-world visits), consumers will seek to display their online status symbols in all arenas.

For example, Twournal enables Twitter users to transform their tweets and pictures into a real-life published journal. In addition to creating their own 'books', users can also buy and sell publications from other users. US based CrowdedInk offers an app that allows users to generate mugs filled with pictures of their Facebook friends or Twitter followers. Users only need to enter their username and a preview of the mug is automatically generated in minutes.

As more and more businesses look to create fans from consumers they are also going to need to be conscious of recognising those fans and rewarding them for their patronage in every world they might inhabit – real or otherwise.

Learn more about Twournal