How Not to Use Twitter to Market Yourself

How Not to Use Twitter to Market Yourself

Tragedy is a great time for society to come together, and rise above the occasion to help create a better outcome. It’s also a great time for people to show their true insensitivity, lack of tack, etc.

Twitter, of course, is the #winning platform for publicist-free, unfiltered dialogues, and while this “honesty” can be a great way to interact with your audience, it is also fraught with potential danger when people tweet things they haven’t thought through.

Toeing the line between “keeping it real” and smartly using social media to advance your business can be a fine line. But try to avoid replicating these examples:

Caustic-voiced Gilbert Gottfried is a well-known comedian who has been the voice of the Aflac duck for years. Anyone who’s seen Gottfried’s stand-up or his performance in The Aristocrats has a good understanding that shock value is a part of his schtick, but any comedian should also know that timing is a huge part of telling a joke. A day after a 9.0 earthquake is bad timing.

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WNBA gaurd Cappie Pondexter is best known as a member of the Rutger’s women’s basketball team that was referred to by Don Imus as “nappy-headed ho’s.” As New York Times columnist William Rhoden writes:

At the time Pondexter said that “Imus’s racial comments are unacceptable and inappropriate.” She added, “Not only were the comments racist, they were also misogynistic.”

Asked what she thought might be fitting punishment, Pondexter said that an apology was not sufficient. “I do not feel that an apology or the two-week suspension is ample punishment. It is my understanding that his show is supposed to be comedic. Who does this humor?”

So a bit surprising that she would post the following, then dig herself into an increasingly deeper whole hole by apologizing with caveats:

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If you’re trying to appear credible to skeptics, then it helps to have proper grammar (i.e. “there” instead of “their”), and have a little clarity around your statement of how the Japanese mistreated their own people.

Cappie defended herself by saying that the context of the statements were lost. She apologized via twitter (which is the least sincere form of apology), but the damage was done.

On other social media fronts, two young women took to YouTube to express their sentiment. First, was UCLA student Alexandra Wallace who complained about the asians who were talking on their cellphones in the library while she was trying to study by first uttering the phrase “ching chong ting tong” then stating, “I swear they’re going through their whole families just checking on everything from the, uh, tsunami thing.”

Then a woman going by the handle of “tamtampamela” went on an exi-jesus, er, exigesis to explain how she had prayed for the atheists to receive a sign and God answered her prayers with the earthquake and tsunami.

Over on SportsShooter.com, member Jim Colburn responded on the day of the tsunami with “Kiss your 401k good-bye” then later explained that his detractors that all major outlets were reporting on how the event would impact the global economy.

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Whether you agree with the underlying sentiment behind each of these messages is irrelevant to the delivery, tact and timing, which i think most neutral observers can agree is pretty poor.

Daniel Khabie, chief executive at Digitaria comments in Rhoden’s article, “We, as people, have a social responsibility,” he added. “What you say in social media shouldn’t be just a chain of thoughts.”

It’s an interesting notion. In the same way you cannot yell fire in a crowded theatre, perhaps there is something to be said about a tacit “social responsibility” that exists when we broadcast our thoughts on the Internet.

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This article was written by

Allen Murabayashi is the co-founder of PhotoShelter.

There are 5 comments for this article
  1. Zeke Smith at 7:12 pm

    No offense Allen, and I completely agree with your point, but I do find it a bit ironic that you’re criticizing Poindexter’s grammar right after you say she’s digging herself into a deeper “whole.” 🙂

  2. Aaron at 6:11 pm

    Allen, What about this one then? “then later explained that his detractors that all major outlets” I’m not picky and wouldn’t even point this out except for the previous comments 😉 Great article!

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