FreshNetworks Blog

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It’s happened to all of us. We think we’re logged into one account, when actually we’re logged into another. We think we’re sending a Direct Message, when actually we’re sending a a message to the world. Or maybe we just don’t think and regret saying something. Whether you’re an individual or a brand, Tweeting something you shouldn’t have can be a cause of concern, panic and, often, inertia. What should you do? Ignore it? Apologise? Do you risk making things worse?

Here are some simple thoughts to help you decide how you should act and what you should do when that mis-Tweet happens.

So you Tweeted from the wrong account

Maybe you have two accounts – one for a close group of friends and one that is public – or maybe you Tweet on behalf of a brand as well as in a personal capacity. Tweeting from the wrong account is a common occurrence for many people and is easily done. In many cases this won’t be a problem – okay maybe you just told your friends all about some special offer your company has on this week or pointed them to a blog post they probably aren’t interested in, but that doesn’t really matter. Nor does it necessarily matter if you tell your brand’s followers about a football match you are at or what you are watching on TV – as long as these Tweets aren’t hugely inappropriate they reinforce that there is a real person behind this branded account who does real stuff in their real life. In these cases, a simple (possibly humourous) acknowledgement that you sent the Tweet to the wrong place should suffice. And remember to not do it again!

Things become more difficult if you have said something inappropriate to the audience (or just inappropriate per se). If you’ve tweeted something to the world that you meant only for some close friends you need to make sure you delete the message, apologise and apologise to anybody who mentions it or complains to you. If you’re a brand and an employee has done the same then the same rules probably apply: delete the Tweet, apologise and apologise to everybody who mentions it. If you’re a brand you might also want to consider if the employee’s conduct required disciplinary action and it may be worth including this information in your apology Tweet.

So you sent a Direct Message to the world by mistake

A mistake many novice users make and that is also easy to do. Again, there may be no problem here – if the Tweet isn’t offensive to the audience that sees it (and isn’t confidential) then apologise and maybe just leave it. The problem comes when the Tweet isn’t appropriate for everybody to see, and if it was a DM in the first place this is highly likely to be the case. Once something is public others will be retweeting it and mentioning it so you cannot just pretend the Tweet didn’t happen. You can just follow the same process as above: delete the Tweet, apologise and explain to those that mentions it and be more careful in future. You may also choose, especially if you are new to Twitter, to show some humility (“Looks like I’m still getting used to Twitter, doesn’t it…”).

You should also consider what you are using DMs for and what you are saying – maybe what you said was better off Twitter completely.

So you regret something you said on Twitter

Finally, and the most common situation, you say something that you later regret. Maybe you Tweeting something late at night that you wouldn’t say in the cold light of day. Maybe you said something that sounds worse than you meant. Or maybe your conversation should never have been public in the first place. Just as with a mis-Tweet, if you say something you later regret then you can’t just pretend it never happened. People may be retweeting it and mentioning it already. One thing you should consider, however, is whether you making an issue of the regretted Tweet will actually make things worse. Some Tweets (especially those late at night) may go unread and as long as they are misjudged rather than offensive or libelous it may be that you just leave things.

However, in most cases you will need to act. If what you have said is offensive to some of your audience and you regret it you should probably apologise – be open and honest that it was a mistake and you regret it now, contact people directly with the same apology. And then think carefully about how and when you use Twitter.

We all make mistakes and people understand that. But we should think carefully about what we say on any public channel (our personal accounts or a branded account) and think if it would be better to just not say it at all in the first place.

This morning I presented on the importance of remembering the people involved in social media – who you are engaging and what they want from you. When brands struggle on Facebook or Twitter it is usually because they haven’t thought through what is in it for the people they are engaging. It is easy as a brand to decide how you want to use social media, and what you want people to do. It is less easy, but more important, to consider what the people you are engaging want to do.

I decided to show this through a simple story – that of Mary (a mum) and Jack (who works in marketing for a large FMCG firm). Jack wants to sell a new breakfast cereal to Mary and thinks that social media isn’t the answer. But he has made a big mistake…

The story is simple but it is one many brands can learn from – understand the motivations, needs and interests of the people you are looking to engage. If you don’t they probably won’t want to follow or Like you.

Image by dobrych via Flickr

The latest data from the Office of National Statistics n the UK shows that, for the first time ever, over half of adults accessed social networking sites in 2011. The annual British Internet Habits survey showed that in 2011, 57% of over-16s in the UK are using the internet for social networking, as opposed to 43% in 2010. This is a significant landmark, and the rate of growth is impressive and it shows the importance of social networking in the lives of British adults.

Digging deeper into these statistics we can start to understand more about use of social networking in the UK:

• Women are more likely than men to have used social networks, with 60% of them using such sites in 2011 (compared with 54% of men)
• Social networks are all but ubiquitous for the 16-24 year olds, with 91% of this age range using them. Usage is high for the 25-34 year old (76%) and 35-44 year olds (58%).
• Almost one in five of those aged 65+ use social networks (18%)

Alongside this marked increase in the use of social networks in the last year, the survey data reveals more about how British adults are using the internet:

• The most popular activity online is, unsurprisingly, to find information about good or services that people want to buy – this reinforces the importance of his channel in the education and buying process
• Men are more likely than women to consume news online (57% compared with 47%)
• Almost one in three UK adults (31%) have sold their own goods online
• Professional networking (such as LinkedIn) is most popular with those aged 25-34 and 25-44
• The use of internet for phone calls is increasing – with 29% of UK adults making a call over the Internet in 2011
• Internet access from mobile devices is increasing dramatically – with 45% of UK adults accessing the Internet from these devices, up from 31% in 2010.

However, this data also highlights the 23% of the UK population who have no access to the Internet at home, with half of these people saying that they have no need for the Internet at all.

There are lots of tools emerging that appear to give us wonderful statistics and data about Twitter, but it’s hard to know which data we actually want and how we want to receive it.

As Twitter’s API has been undergoing a few changes recently, we thought it would be useful to give you an overview of the information that you can still get from the platform itself, as well as providing some guidance on the best way to measure the data.

The four main data types on Twitter are:

• User data – relates to the user who posted the message.
• Friend and follower data – relates to the relationship a user has to other users.
• Tweet data – all the details and content relating to a particular tweet.
• Places and Geographic data – the geographic and location based aspects relating to a person or tweet.

There are also four main measurements that we can use to measure this data in order to understand the impact of the activity on Twitter:

• Impressions – aggregated users exposed to messages.
• Reach – number of unique users exposed to a message.
• Frequency – number of times each unique user reached is exposed to a message.
• Relevancy – reach to specific demographics.

When it comes to the ROI of these messages, it’s important to think about how they compare to your other channels in terms of reach and impressions.

Take a look at the presentation below – we hope it helps to reveal some of the Twitter data you can access through the API and ways in which you might go about measuring it.