Apr 13
19
When Set and Forget Equals Social Neglect
It has been a tragic, difficult week. Two major back to back incidents in the United States put the world on edge. Many were slammed back to the darkest days following 9/11 with feelings of fear, anger, sadness and confusion playing on our minds. It has been hard to avoid glancing at news websites to catch the latest updates. We’re worried and wired and looking for hopeful signs in a series of very real crises.
Given those circumstances, try to imagine how Twitter and Facebook users might have felt seeing preset social media promotions regarding the Boston Marathon in the hours after the bombings.
That nobody expected the Boston Marathon to become a national tragedy when they pre-set their social media messages the Friday before made little difference, it was still insulting to see Tweets and emails from Foursquare to users who had checked in leading to a page asking how the Boston Marathon was for them.
This was a clever preset promotion, something any company like Foursquare would do, until circumstances around the event in their promotion went so horribly bad. In seconds, the clever preset promotion became a thing that could cause sorrow, anger and long term damage to a user’s trust in the Foursquare brand.
The problem wasn’t the preset. The problem was that nobody stopped it from being sent or altered the content of the message. Nobody redirected the promotional URL to something useful. (It is worth noting the CEO of Foursquare, Dennis Crowley, was running in the marathon. He was at the 25th mile point when the first bomb went off.)
A similar thing happened with other brands, many of which were associated with running or charities. Preset social media promotions sent hours after the bombings invited users to join brand positive conversations using the marathon as the point of conversation. While the preset mistakes are not deliberate acts of gracelessness like the , they are graceless acts of brand neglect.
Common sense says you should know what you’re saying in a public space when you’re saying it. Similarly, even though 100%, 24/7 monitoring of social media is a stretch for any organization, knowing the schedule of preset social promotions has to be the responsibility of SOMEBODY in a large or small business organization. In several instances this week, those somebodies should have taken action to prevent preset acts of social neglect.
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Jim Hedger
Jim Hedger is an organic SEO and digital marketing specialist. Jim has been involved in the online marketing industry since 1998 and a SEO since 1999. Best known as a broadcaster, interviewer, content writer and search industry commentator, Jim is a frequent conference speaker and organizer. He hosts the search focused radio show Webcology on WebmasterRadio.FM and is a WebmasterRadio.FM conference interviewer. Jim brings a wealth of knowledge, experience, passion and creative thinking to each project. Preferring a teamwork approach, Jim strives to inform and train his clients and their staff to run and maintain their own search and social media efforts.
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