Splash, Then Ripples

I just read an article in AdAge written by Freddie Laker, Director of Digital Strategy at Sapient. He describes a situation that taunts the most impulsive among us. Those who cannot bear to let an uninformed writer and simply wrong piece of information float around out there in the nethersphere of cyberspace need to: STOP. REFLECT. PONDER.

As Freddie, (I can call you Freddie, can’t I? We’re both in this together here.) points out, sometimes drawing attention to a naysayer plays right into their original intention: drawing even more attention to their comments. His conclusion, in this case, ignore the tweet where a clueless reporter unaware of the role Sapient has played in the development of interactive marketing calls them “complete clowns.”

I can’t think of, immediately anyway, an industry where this kind of situation arises more frequently than in hospitality.

You sleep, you know how a hotel should be run. You eat, so you have every right to dictate how a restaurant should be run, how a dish should be cooked, served. Most people agree on that premise, or else we wouldn’t be witnesses to the success that is and has been Zagat‘s and CitySearch and Yelp.

That said, yes, as a guest you have a right to your opinion and are free to post it wherever you can find nowadays, whether it’s Yelp or an up-and-coming I need to add to the list, BooRah.

The problem develops when someone who is talking out of their hat has a clever or funny or distinctly credible way of phrasing things. Then that business’ reputation is at risk from a negative review that may have gone viral, if only in the sense that it influenced subsequent reviewers pushing them to be undeservedly panned to such a degree.

It’s happened to me, in fact, and I am an owner of a restaurant and a consultant to other ones, so I should know better. Sigh.

So, oh wizened readers and writers of AdAge and of Splash, Then Ripples, when then? When do we step in? What are our options to stem the flood of negative comments to our profiles and reputations when in an industry where people naturally turn to community reviews by their fellow guests?

Augie Ray wrote this very NEED TO READ post, on reasons why someone would unfollow me which I read on Social Media Today on etiquette/manners/rules on Twitter. I was very happy to read the following . . .

I hate to call anyone out, but I follow Chris Brogan and find his Tweets incredibly noisy because of all his personal @replies. This morning he’s sent tweets like “@pilarstella – thanks. So far, no rappelling. ; )” and “@qzcolszh1949 – complete coincidence, but hey, I’ll take it. : ).” What are these supposed to mean to me (or others) other than @qzcolszh1949 and @pilarstella? I find Chris an interesting thought leader, but I may unfollow him because he’s getting in the way of me tracking interesting tweets from other less noisy thought leaders!

My goodness, I thought I was one of the few to disagree with how a Social Media Expert is Tweeting, and maybe I am, but for someone like Chris Brogan to keep @replying to people without even hinting at context? PUH-lease, stop it already. Someone else in the comments section of Social Media Today defended him saying that maybe he didn’t follow those he was @replying and COULDN’T DM them.

Um, I bet you a Haagen-Daaz Cookie Dough Ice Cream Bar that he DOES follow them back, but this is his way of trying to show that he “engages with his followers” and that he is able to make his platform interactive. Me? I find it annoying and I DON’T want to have to click AGAIN to find out why he’s saying what he’s saying that is so cryptically intriguing.

It’s not just Augie and me, is it? Not to call poor CB out on this, but maybe it’s time people stopped ragging on Robert Scoble and his unfollowing adventures and give honest and constructive feedback to someone who needs to hear it.

Actually, to address that Scobleizer item for a moment, I think less people would have been annoyed if Robert hadn’t made such a big deal about unfollowing the too many people on his list. Then again, maybe he mentioned it once and it got the ball rolling and rolling . . .and rolling. Leading to namecalling and so on. Personally, I think Robert had the right idea, and enjoyed all the attention just a smidge, just perhaps on a communications level, his was NOT the right integrated approach.

These days, because of a recalcitrant BlackBerry, the way I follow certain thought leaders and friends out of almost 2000 is sending them to my phone as texts. It’s a lot of messages, but those I find most interesting and worth saving I send to my email to read later and deal with on a bigger screen than my phone. So far that is working for me. And I edit the ones that go to my phone periodically and swap them out for different ones.

I do have groups on TweetDeck, but find that I look at that less because I am often in waiting mode where I can just swoop through Text Messages. I find with favoriting on Twitter I don’t tend to go back, so I prefer to save interesting URLs through Google Bookmarks now which I can categorize. Note to self, ask Twitter to permit categorizing of favorites.

As for my way of tweeting, re#2 I DO thank publicly for RTs & Follow Friday mentions, etc., but not consistently. Sometimes I DM it. Still on the fence about that one.

I totally agree with Augie on the rest of the 8 items on his list. . . lest you anger the Twitter Gods, or, at the very least, your followers.

How about you, are you annoying anyone on Twitter?