Social Media Bullies

bullied1

By on 13 January 2012 in Blog, Social Media, Society, Technology, Twitter with 15 Comments.

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Remember in high school how the cocky seniors would pick on the new freshmen simply because they were in a higher grade?  The freshman could be a better football player, get better grades, and be a nicer person than the senior, but that didn’t matter.  Occasionally we see similar relationships in social media and online.

Social media, let’s not forget, is still in the infancy stage.  There are faux pas, rules, do’s and don’t-do’s, and guidelines.  All of these things can change over the course of just a month, leaving people either on the cutting edge setting the pace or behind in the dust looking like they’ve shown up late to the game.   For instance, I used to set up my DM to send a message to my new followers, and shortly thereafter disabled that, seeing how impersonal it was (You know you did it, too). Sometimes people start using these platforms and become convinced they are experts because they figured out how to tweet.  Side note: if you are claiming to be an expert, you aren’t.  Let other people claim this for you. (If you want to know a little more about using Twitter for your business or organization, here’s a quick set of guidelines that I posted awhile back.)

I was inspired to write this after seeing a couple of tweets between some of my followers in Plymouth and South Bend, Indiana.  Plymouth is a small rural town about 25 minutes south of South Bend.  South Bend is considerably larger thanks to industry, Notre Dame, and bigger businesses.  I used to live in Plymouth, and would spend the majority of my entertainment money (food, drinks, movies, books, etc) in South Bend.  That goes for a lot of people in smaller, outlying towns surrounding larger cities.  It makes sense.

When I first started tweeting back in 2009, I didn’t know what a tweetup was.  I tried scouting out the locals on Twitter to interact with.  There weren’t many in Plymouth.  In fact, I could count them on one hand, thumb not included.  However, I made an effort to connect.  I came across @MaPeters, a local copy specialist and author.  We started meeting for coffee once a month at the local coffee shop to discuss the current culture of the town, social media, small business, and more.  I connected with @andreacook, a local small business owner (@midascenter, a print and digital marketing and promotions company), and we worked on some projects together. That was nearly the extent of the people on Twitter at the time though.

I started expanding my range to include Indianapolis and Valaraiso, Indiana.  I quickly became aware that Valparaiso, or Valpo as locals call it, was jumping all over Twitter, and social media in general.  I connected with @davewoodson, a regional specialist in mortgage and real estate and social media marketing.  He was utilizing Twitter in an entirely new way, years ahead of his colleagues.  In fact, he is now regularly asked to speak at real estate conferences specifically about social media and generating leads.

I ran across @daltonsbriefs, also in the real estate industry.  He did a lot of consulting for various people and businesses, and utilized social media in a great way.  This included writing regular blog posts, tweeting, using Facebook, and more.  It was paying off, and he was helping teach other people how to do it.

I met @natfinn, a local author (a Book of Blues) and content specialist at Golden Technologies.  He worked with others to create content that would boost their rankings in search engines and attract potential customers eyes.  Finn is a ridiculously nice guy and always  took a few extra minutes to explain the latest updates in social media or web standards.

I connected with many more people on Twitter that were based in Valpo.  I started seeing them post about something called #nwitweetup.  @davewoodson had somewhere in the ballpark of 12,000 followers on Twitter. Here he was, tweeting me, Mr. 184 followers.  The other guys would tweet back to me their input on topics, and we had a lot of good discussions on Twitter.  I decided, as I was freelancing in Northwest Indiana, to make the trek to Valparaiso to attend their tweetups.  I thought it would be valuable for me to invest my time into the region and see what was happening out there.  I figured it would be a good opportunity to meet new people, pass out some business cards, and if I was lucky, get a paying client somewhere down the road.  At the very least, I could learn more about social media and try to bring it to Plymouth.  These happened once a month at a different local Valpo business, and usually offered free appetizers and a door prize of some sort.  The drive time was no less than 45 minutes one way and sometimes took an hour.  I kept going back even though it was quite a drive.  Did it pay off?  I secured some freelance gigs for clients doing web sites, graphic design, a consulting gig for United Way and their Battle of the Bands, and another consulting gig for a local music festival.  I created great friendships with some people in Valpo, whom previously I had just interacted with on Twitter.  Any way you cut it, I saw my driving time as worth it.

Back to South Bend: No tweetups in sight, a few people using Twitter, and nobody really pushing social media on the front lines.  Plymouth was even more dismal.  I talked with @andreacook and the other few people in Plymouth that were on Twitter about trying to organize something.  We were fairly close to reaching out to South Bend social media leaders when we saw promotions for a #michianatweetup as well as a #tweetupmichiana. (Michiana is the area of NorthCentral Indiana including South Bend, Mishawaka, and Plymouth)

There was a dispute over who could do the tweetup in Michiana and who could use that hashtag. One of the local social media “experts” (title assigned by himself) claimed that he owned the rights to the hashtag #michianatweetup.  That quickly blew up in his face as myself and the people over in Valpo (45 minutes away) started giving him quite a large piece of our collective mind.  This particular business owner, who tried to profit in ways by holding the tweetups, quickly fell off the face of Twitter.

Where is this going?

Yesterday @andreacook was promoting some of her social media and small business events that she hosts at her coworking space at the @midascenter.  Oh, I forgot to mention that Plymouth, as small as it is, has a trendsetting coworking space geared toward creative professionals.  Anyway, she reached out to some of the regulars in South Bend, asking if they’d be able to make it out and participate.  One such user was @betweenthebuns, a local restaurant.

The response?

So here we have a local business that decides the “juice isn’t worth the squeeze” and that Plymouth is a waste of their time.  Last time I checked, the majority of Plymouth residents go to South Bend on a weekly basis to spend their money in South Bend businesses.  @andreacook’s response?

Here is what I want to get across to people and businesses new to Twitter.  Oh, you have 2,000 followers?  That doesn’t matter if you don’t get the value of social media and general networking.

1. Social media is an additional avenue to promote your business or product while creating real relationships.

2. Because you are on Twitter does not mean you have “arrived.”  It is not wise to talk down to another person on Twitter.  Remember that Twitter has the opportunity to greatly multiply the visibility of your business through retweets.  You might tweet to one person that has 350 followers, but if they retweet it to their followers and then one of them who has 15,000 followers retweets it, you just broadcast a negative message to a good number of people nationwide.

3. If you’re a business owner on Twitter, you need to clearly define the voice of your Twitter account.  Is it a voice that speaks on behalf of the company, or is it a voice that speaks on behalf of an individual?  Mixing the two, as they did here


can create an unprofessional image for your Twitter account. It can also be confusing to your followers and even dissuade them from interacting with you on Twitter, or worse yet, from spending their money in your establishment.  Maintaining a consistent voice on Twitter and social media in general is one of the most important guidelines to consider when tweeting or posting on Facebook.  Don’t blur the line and then say something that your company would not print on a flyer and hang on the front door.

In regards to the above interaction, if you’re a smaller city that is starting to embrace social media and Twitter, don’t forget that you’re able to do so largely in part because someone, more experienced, probably got the ball rolling.  For instance, I drove an hour each way to attend the #nwitweetups in Valparaiso, a city considerably larger than Plymouth.  After awhile, South Bend, also larger than Plymouth, wanted to start a tweetup.  @davewoodson from Valparaiso actually drove 45 minutes to South Bend to help get things going, meet with local social media leaders, and give feedback on ways to improve their events.  The social media culture in South Bend is still relatively young.  Plymouth locals have been using Twitter just as long (and sometimes longer) than the South Bend people.  What needs to happen is this: South Bend and Plymouth officially partner together to create larger events and expand their social media network.  @andreacook has a great thing going in Plymouth.  I can attest to this.  I am part of a coworking space in Morgantown, WV and am in the process of organizing tweetups there.  Just because there hasn’t been a lot of traffic to a particular area in regards to social media does not mean it’s not viable.

The moral of the story (as sporadic as it may have seemed!) is this: building relationships online is just as (and sometimes more) important as the face-to-face relationships.  This goes for individuals and businesses alike.  When tweeting someone, think of how it will impact your image.  Perhaps you don’t care or that’s what you’re going for.  That’s fine.  If you’re representing a local business, though, keep in mind that what you say on Twitter (I hate the Chicago Blackhawks, etc) might be your personal view as the person typing the tweet, but it will likely alienate a few passionate fans from your business.  Instead, create another Twitter account for personal use and speak your opinions as much as you want.

If you belong to a community that is utilizing social media effectively, help out and spread the benefits to the surrounding areas and educate others on why they should be jumping head first into social media.  Then learn how to do it without offending people.

While social media allows your fans to rave about your business, it also goes the other way sometimes.

Comments?  Thoughts?  If you got here via Facebook, Twitter, or Google+, feel free to leave comments there, but I’d really appreciate your comments here as well to maintain the context of the conversation for future readers.  You can also follow me on Twitter and Google+ if you’d like.  Thanks!