Hot Topic: Armed (with Social Media) & Dangerous

[Source: Hershey|Cause, July 29, 2010]

The last few weeks have provided several stinging examples of one of our mantras: just because you can use social media doesn't mean you should. Remember social media is not a promotional strategy in-and-of-itself. It should be part of a comprehensive communications plan that harnesses its power to engage your audiences. Read on for why you must wait a beat before you tweet:

Not waiting that beat led Utah's Attorney General Mark Shurtleff to tweet, "I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner's execution. May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims." He then tweeted and invited followers to catch his post-firing squad live streaming press conference. The AG's postings were widely criticized by death penalty advocates and opponents alike as power tripping, disgusting, amoral, vile, etc.

British Petroleum (BP), not scoring many public relations points lately, stumbled in its response to Tony Hayward's weekend attendance at a luxury yacht race. Unfortunately for BP, Hayward chose to respond to the criticism with a quick tweet "assuring" his followers the Gulf oil spill disaster remained his priority. Actions, in this case, spoke louder than tweets.

CNN's senior editor of Mideast affairs, Octavia Nasr, lost her job after tweeting her sadness at the death of Lebanon's Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. In spite of her reputation "as a leader in integrating social media with newsgathering and reporting" and apologies for her Twitter remarks, Nasr could not overcome the damage to her reputation that her "overly simplistic comment" had done. Two decades at CNN done in an instant.

Kirsty Burkhart, Director of Public Policy