Edward Branley's blog

As I sat down this morning to check my @YatPundit twitter stream at the coffee shop, I was greeted with forty-two consecutive tweets from this guy:

That's right, forty-two consecutive tweets like you see above. Looks like @jamesroughton's RSS reader went haywire. It happens--typical rookie mistake.

Here's the catch, check out @jamesroughton's Twitter bio:

Social networking and Branding Mentor - Safety Professional

Do you want a guy who can't control his own news feed advising you on how to use social networking?

That's one of the HUGE problems with "social media," the number of bush-league amateurs who want to "help" you and your business. You may end up with someone who will do your brand more harm than good.

We all say things we wish we hadn't, both face to face, and online.  Southwest Airlines did a whole ad campaign on the subject, suggesting you jump on a SWA plane to get away from the gaffe.  Fortunately, the recall of most humans is such that we can get passed most verbal gaffes in a short period of time.  But what of gaffes made on Teh Internets?

Take the case of Mr. Dave Gebhardt.  Mr. Gebhardt is a talented artist and illustrator.  I own several of his Squadron/Signal books (my fave is the F4 Phantom title).

Alas, Mr. Gebhardt is also a wingnut who doesn't like some of my political leanings/sentiments, and he informed me of just that on Twitter yesterday:

Yeah, I know, @CajunDave isn't the first "Top Conservative On Twitter" who is offensive, but I was very surprised to find someone with so prominent a public persona being this offensive in the public stream.  I pointed this out as part of the Twitter conversation that followed, and Mr. Gebhardt took steps to hide his personal opinions.  Since this response to me, @CajunDave has taken his Twitter account private:

If you're going to post things on-line that your clients (and potential clients) might shy away from, taking those remarks out of the public eye is a good start. Still, it's so very difficult to un-ring the bell. Many people use client programs to do instant messaging and Twitter. Even if you delete the offending content, it lives on, stored in those clients, as well as e-mail. Deleted blog content can be resurrected via Google Cache and the Wayback Machine.

In the specific case of Twitter, what happens in public tends to stay in public. @CajunDave has locked down his stream, but a search of conversations between me and him brings his words right back into view:

We can't see any of Mr. Gebhardt's original thoughts, but if he replies to someone, those tweets go public, and can be accessed.  There's no privacy as soon as you mention another Twitter user in the message.

Savvy internet users have dealt with this issue for years.  It's why you see a lot of anonymous users on both sides of the political blogosphere.  The person behind the nickname often has a separate website, possibly even one for their business as well.  How to avoid having to run around, trying to un-ring the bell?

• Blog/Tweet under a pseudonym. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but, let's face it, does Dairy Queen want to be associated with someone who makes on-line Nazi comments?  Pick an alias that doesn't point a big, red arrow right back at your real name.
• Separate the political and the professional.  Once you set up your alias, stick to it.  Before he "went private," @CajunDave had a link to his portfolio and resume on his Twitter profile page.  That's a recipe for disaster, because he created a direct link between his comments and his employers.  The best way to stick to this separation is to update online content on both sides of the wall.  If you're prolific politically, be prolific professionally. 
• Remember the boundaries of civilized discourse.  Unless you're trying to establish a persona like the Rude Pundit, or you want a career like that mommy-blogger lady who ended up becoming a full-time blogger because her drama forced her out of her job, you really do have to know where the lines are.  A bit of swearing, mocking public figures, these things, particularly when done under a pseudonym, aren't going to raise many eyebrows.  Learn the corporate culture of your employer (or clients if you're self-employed) and stick within those boundaries, or make sure your pseudonym is a very deep cover.

Blogging and micro-blogging are all about free expression.  That said, it's important to remember that none of us are really 100% free.  When the fingers on the keyboard move faster than the brain, it's difficult to take it all back.

souffle' potatoes from our tweet-up last night at the Hermes Bar

One of the easiest things a restaurant or bar can do to use social media is to make their place available for a "tweet-up" gathering. It's easy, do $1 draft, spring for a couple of 1.5L bottles of chardonnay and merlot, maybe put out some appetizers, the sort of thing any bar does for happy hour. Once people are there, make sure they get on Twitter, Brightkite, and Foursquare and generate buzz.

The trick is to keep the buzz going beyond the event itself. It's great that folks tell their friends/followers where they are while at your place, but twitter messages and facebook status updates are a fleeting thing. Many of the people who will come out to a "tweet-up" event are also bloggers. Still others post lots of photos to their Facebook pages. Make sure they do this for your tweet-up. For example, we gathered last night at the Hermes Bar at Restaurant Antoine in the French Quarter. It was a totally "organic" get-together, in that it wasn't promoted or sponsored by Antoines in any way. Ryan, Pontchartrain Pete, and I are all fans of the restaurant, so it went on the tweet-up location list. The Gustes don't have to pay us to eat their food, but if they want to buy us a drink next time, we won't fuss. I blogged about the gathering this morning, so now Antoines and the Hermes Bar have a positive, "organic" item that will show up when someone uses search engines to check them out. That's extremely valuable, and not as simple to pull off as it seems.

I was followed on Da Twittah this morning by two candidates for political office. Chef Greg Sonnier is running for New Orleans City Council, and Janis Lemle is running for Assessor. Their twitter presences are an interesting study in contrasts.

Sonnier's twitter feed is one-way. He (or, more accurately, whomever is paid to maintain this feed) posts messages but does not engage or interact. If he paid money to someone to set this up, he should demand a refund--notice there's not even a link to his campaign website.

Lemle's, on the other hand, is an interactive stream. I don't know if she's replying herself or if the account is maintained by a staffer (I don't know the lady well enough to know how into the tech she is), but either way, someone is replying back.  There's a link to the campaign website, as well.  They need to fix the grammatical error in the bio, but otherwise, other candidates can learn from Lemle's use of social media.

Using Social Media as a conduit for customer service scares a lot of companies. Sure, you'll get props from the people you help, but what if customer complaints and abuse outweigh the number of resolved issues? This attitude is way too prevalent, so it's important to recognize the companies who do respond well to their customers.

Nola.com (@NOLAnews on da twittah) is the on-line source for the Times-Picayune newspaper. I'm following a story on taxicab drivers in New Orleans for my travel blog, YatTravel, and I wanted to reference a story I read this morning, but couldn't find it on-line. I found it curious that it wasn't listed in the "headlines" section, and tweeted that frustration.

Within minutes, I got back an offer of help:

A while later, I got these:

and when I thanked "LWL," I got this:

Now THAT is customer service!  I pick on @NOLAnews a lot, because there are a lot of flaws to NOLA.com, so it's important to give credit when they do good.  And this is doing better than just good. 

That's the cover of the 2010 edition of Arthur Hardy's Mardi Gras Guide, the best-known publication listing parade routes and schedules for the New Orleans Carnival season.  Arthur has produced the Guide since 1977.  He's a true Carnival afficianado, expert, and memorabila junkie.  One of my favorite things is to read the articles in the Guide while waiting for parades to come.

As a long-time fan of the Guide, I was excited when they followed me on Twitter, as @mardigrasguide.  I immediately replied back, saying how pleased I was and that I had just bought the 2010 edition.  I tweeted that I picked up the Guide at Zuppardo's Supermarket just before New Year's and mentioned @mardigrasguide.  This led to a discussion of my friend Steve Faure's article on page 80 of the Guide, and our congratulations to him on a job well done.

Imagine my surprise when I noticed that @mardigrasguide blocked me.

(more after the jump)

That privacy groups are complaining to the FTC about Facebook's privacy policy changes is no surprise. What's interesting is that what is characterized by one analyst as Facebook's 'Microsoft moment' made it to NPR's Morning Edition this morning.

(Part one of three)

Linking social networking to specific geographic locations ("location based networking") is an interesting concept being implemented by two popular services, Brightkite.com and Foursquare.com. While both services have similar features, their differences focus the sites on specific target markets. Some thoughts on both.