A Perfect Storm of Tweets



My 21st century homage to Georges de La Tour

And what happens if the groundswell is wrong?

Like many in New England, we were without power for the past couple of days (news flash: lack of electricity has an impact on the use of social media), and as usual during these events, we are hungry for information (as well as incredibly bored with a non-digital lifestyle when thrust upon us).

After going to a social media marketing presentation a while back, I decided to give Twitter a try. I confess, I didn't follow many, but those I did follow I found less than scintillating, and felt that they were simply one step above talking to themselves. During the storm, I think I would appreciated Twitter more if I had a select group to follow (I didn't even bother with any storm hashtags, as I assumed the volume of Tweets would be overwhelming, and I was wondering when I would be able to recharge my phone.)

I am glad, however, that my copy of "Groundswell" is the 11th edition, with an updated Chapter 10: Tapping the Groundswell with Twitter. 

When I first heard about Twitter, it seemed silly. And when I heard one of the Twitter evangelists almost wetting his pants with excitement about the fact that His Local Coffee Shop Could Tweet Him about Specials!!!!!, well, I figured, it's just the end of civilization as we know it. Maybe it's the grumpy old man in me, but I don't want to hear more from entities where I don't have any real personal relationship (and I am not even that enthusiastic about the ones I do have relationships with).

The limit of 140 characters (although I understand they are going to expand that, at least for some set of uses) did seem intriguing. And perfect for celebrities such as the Khardashians, who probably don't know enough words to use up more letters than that.

As with other strategies outlined in Groundswell, I can't quarrel with them, but many of the tactics they ask businesses to employ were (or should have been) done by responsive businesses in the analog era. The difference now is that we have added the elements of speed and visibility.

The example given about Fadra, the mommie-blogger hunting down the "correct" McDonald's action toy may be "feel good" (although curmudgeons like me wonder about parents advertising how happy they are that a corporation has co-opted their kid), I was more impressed with the use of Twitter to provide at least a semblance of immediate resolution and response to issues by companies such as AT&T, which, like other companies can now use Twitter as a formal customer support channel, and Intuit, which was able to build a stronger relationship by providing tax preparation advice.

While engagement with all forms of social media can be mutually beneficial, sometimes it may be adversarial, and in this chapter, the book didn't seem to give good, workable solutions to fighting deliberate misinformation. And then I wonder, are there times when you simply should not engage?

First, a little fun:

 

As a result of Hurricane Sandy, there were postings that demonstrated the lack of accountability and veracity provided when "anyone" can use social media. Tweets and pictures purporting to show effects of the storm that were deliberately faked or were from other weather events, or even from disaster movies quickly appeared:

But it can take a while for the ruse to be exposed. According to the Washington Post:

The Chinese Web has picked up on one of the most popular photos from Hurricane Sandy. It’s from Brigantine, N.J., and purports to show a shark swimming through the town’s flooded streets. It was originally posted by a guy named Kevin McCarty, who earlier posted another shark-in-Jersey photo that TheAtlantic.com’s Alexis Madrigal demonstrated was fake. It’s been shared almost 7,000 times on Facebook and has now made its way over to China, where users on the country’s massive Twitter-like service, Weibo, picked it up. (Spotted by Bloomberg columnist Adam Minter.)
 

You can see a slide show of similar photos at WKYC news.


But it's not all fun

While there was an amusing side to this, there are more serious implications to consider. Particularly as stories "go viral" there can be an assumption of truth (and of course, as time goes by, and more and more fake stories are exposed, it may then reverse and create the assumption that most information through social media is wrong). You can't win.

Slate reported on the false story about NY Stock exchange being flooded, how the tweeter was outed by Buzzfeed, and the implications for effects of false stories on financial markets: BuzzFeed Outs Twitter User Believed To Be Behind Sandy's Biggest Lie, by Josh Voorhees, posted Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, at 1:00 PM ET

The Sandy-themed whopper that caused the most fuss was that the floor of the New York Stock Exchange was under three feet of water, something that was reported as fact by CNN and others late last night before Twitter users moved quickly to self-correct the false report.

And in another article, Will Oremus considered the effect of false reports during an emergency:

Dear Twitter, Don't Believe Everything You Hear on a Police Scanner.

 

We also see social media promoting their own version of medical and scientific theory, where again, it can directly affect people's health and well being. Most famously, Jenny McCarthy, a model and actress, led the now discredited fight against childhood vaccination, believing it caused autism. And in this Sunday's New York Times, the article: A Controversial ‘Cure’ for M.S., by Paul Tullis talked about a medically unproven surgical therapy for multiple sclerosis, promoted by a Dr.Zamboni:

 

Even Zamboni agrees with this sentiment. “With this big attention in social networks, it has generated a black market with speculation, with not properly performed procedures,” he says. “It’s unethical to offer a treatment when it’s in an experimental phase.”

 

(And already the reader comments on-line for this article include stories of "cures" due to this procedure, and other unconventional therapies.)

All right, all right, I'll get to my point

So what happens with a false hit and run blog post, Tweet (or re-Tweet)? As we know with traditional media, everyone remembers the "sexy" part of the story, and when proven untrue, the retraction/correction appears briefly, in a far less prominent position. Yes, if the story seems hot enough, social media can be self-policing, but do you really foresee Tweets of "I was wrong" going viral? 

Are the stories about "Twitter revolution" giving social media  the appearance of authority it doesn't yet deserve? And will social media threats be the Tylenol scare of our generation? The use of Twitter over other media may give it an immediacy that makes it less liable to careful scrutiny, which brings us to Mr. Liberty Mutual .

In spite of the name, this is not an official site, but a place where one person/group has made a personal crusade against the insurance company. And boy, do they have an axe to grind:

 

I noticed that there is apparently no official input from Liberty Mutual on the Mr. Liberty Mutual site  or Twitter feed (and, like many corporations, a Google search on "Liberty Mutual Complaints" turns up many web sites built expressly for the purpose of venting frustration).

Perhaps they see no upside in participating when the playing field is not level. One difficulty is that any message from "corporate" can be dissected, invalidated, disclaimed, mocked, etc. by an entity with no (responsibility) to provide a full story, or even to guarantee the validity of the information they present.

But in fact, if you look at the official Twitter account for Liberty Mutual, you will see  that they are aware of social media, and using it as a tool to respond to their customers (as well as providing other ways to interact with the company).

 

 

 

While this is not likely to satisfy the "complaint" sites, simply by being there it does provide a counterbalance, that can make customers realize that there is possibly more than one side to any story.

 

Author's note:

When googling for information about the Tylenol case, I found this link is to a nicely written, concise set of case studies by Jennifer Hogue. This appears to be a class assignment she completed in 2001 on crisis managent/PR. No other information was provided on her site.