Bad Tweets

This afternoon I was intrigued by an odd tweet containing my Twitter handle (@sandrafathi). The tweet was about Sears CampusReady now available on Facebook. And I wondered why my name was included. I clicked on the sender and discovered that the past 600 some odd tweets used the same message and included random names on the end in an effort to get folks to notice, and maybe retweet (resend) the message to their followers. Ah, hey, that’s spam! That’s breaking of the Twitter unwritten user code. Tweeple don’t like that. I was mad – that Sears, or Sears’s hired reps, are trying to trick me into paying attention to them and duping me into thinking this message was meant for me.

So then I ran a search for Sears CampusReady and found at least three other Twitter handles using the same spammy tactics on behalf of Sears. That really irked me. It’s hard to believe that a reputable, well-established brand could make such a stupid mistake. It’s tainted my opinion of the company, and I am sure some others will feel the same way. Where is the marketing leadership? What’s the PR team saying? Who is advising them on social media to advocate using the medium to trick people into clicking on their site? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, but what I do know is that too many companies are getting bad advice or no advice when it comes to social media. So here are a few quick rules about ‘what not to do on Twitter’ if you don’t want to piss off your potential customers:

1. Hashtag Hijacking - Many people view trending topics on Twitter as an opportunity to use a megaphone to interrupt a conversation. So, when they see that lots of folks are talking about #U2 for instance, they write their own tweet, like “Buy this amazing pooper scooper #U2″ so that everyone following the hashtag will notice. Now, if you are at a cocktail party chatting with friends about the game last night and someone walked into the room and yelled ‘buy this pooper scooper!’ you might look up momentarily and notice, but you’d think the person was a real jerk and certainly not look at his product.

2. False Mentions - This is the tactic that I mentioned above. If I include someone’s username in my tweet to get their attention, it will show up in their ‘mentions’ and get their attention. This is like an “Ah! Made you look!” approach to marketing. Don’t try to trick people into thinking the tweet is about them, or some other subject they care about, and shove an unrelated message into their inbox.

3. Misleading Links – Don’t set people up to click on a link, view a picture, or watch a video by giving them a false lead. It’s annoying enough for the people that write “Check this, it’s AMAZING!” and insert a link and you have no idea what you are going to get – but more annoying is when you think you are going to see a picture of a sleeping kitten and it turns out to be another type of kitty.

4. Mass Follow – This tactic is usually used by folks that want to get a lot of followers in the hopes that most Twitter users will auto-follow almost anyone that follows them. And, many people do have their Twitter accounts set to auto-follow. But, since I can see everyone who follows you and you can see everyone who follows me, it doesn’t bode well for a brand to follow or be followed by a person advocating illegal activity. You should monitor who you follow and who follows you. It’s about quality not quantity. (And oh, Sears, since I’ve been out of college for about 20 years, I’m not your target audience.)

5. Falsifying Tweets - Now there are quite a few folks who have ‘ghost twitterers’ and I find it perfectly acceptable if there is full disclosure. I mean, how can Britney tweet when she’s on stage or getting her nails done, so if her manager needs to step in, so be it. But, we all know that. However, if you are a company spokesperson, executive or PR rep, don’t have someone else tweet in  your name. I want to believe that I’m having a conversation with a real person, not a scripted, edited, speech writer version of you. It’s okay to get help getting started, but if you want to really build a following and credibility on Twitter, we want the real you.

6. Twitterns - So many people have said to me ‘we have to find an intern or someone under 20 to tweet for us’. Are you nuts? Just because someone knows how to pick up the phone doesn’t mean they should speak on behalf of your CEO. Knowing how to use a tool doesn’t mean that the person has good judgement, understands your company messages, can provide strategic counsel and will represent you well to the public. Make sure that whoever is sitting in the driver’s seat of your Twitter presence has had extensive training on your company as well as the tool – and that you feel confident in their ability to speak to your customers, competitors, prospects, members of the media and everyone else that they are going to meet in Twitterville.

If you have any tips/dos/don’ts that you’d like to share, please add them in the comments. And Twitterers, be careful out there. Let’s not let the few bad tweets spoil the bunch.

Update 8/14/09 1:11pm ET:

I spoke with Erin McDaniel, Community, Engagement Manager at Sears Holdings Corporation. She was very forthcoming about Sears’ social media practices and explained that Sears did not condone these practices. According to Erin, Sears uses a company called Social Spark and participates in ‘pay per post’ programs for bloggers who disclose that they are posting sponsored material.[Note: I did not speak/verify with Social Spark] In fact, the Sears CampusReady program is currently featured on the Social Spark front page. Erin says that Sears does not pay per click for posts/Tweets and some folks that may or may not have been part of the Social Spark network may have assumed that they would receive compensation on a pay-per-click basis for sending traffic to the Sears CampusReady Facebook Page. She assured me that this behavior was not sanctioned by Sears and they have contacted any parties to attempt to stop it. (You can see Erin’s direct comment posted below.)

This incident illustrates how easily a brand can by hijacked online and how important it is to be monitoring and participating in order to react quickly and prevent a crisis. However, it also brings up the controversy around pay-per-posts that many bloggers are still debating.

I was certinainly tempted. I was almost an iPhone sucker customer. But I thought I would wait and I’m glad I did. And who knows if I’ll ever become an Apple convert now. But that’s a different topic…

Saul Hansell who writes for the Technology section of the New York Times sees Steve Jobs as a good business man, lowering the price because he wants to make lots more money selling shiploads of iPhones this holiday season.

Len Stein from Chief Marketer looks at this whole crisis as Apple turning this debacle upside down and generating $10 million in free publicity for iPhone through the myriad customer complaints.

Both are true, of course. But is this really the way to market and sell your product? Is this PR at its best?

I don’t think so. From a marketing and PR point of view, I think it was a messy job, a badly thought out marketing and sales campaign, which really surprises me, coming from Apple and the guru of all marketing. Apple dived into this new mobile phone market, which is extremely competitive, with a smug attitude. And it bit them in the behind. With such a dramatic price cut so soon, Apple is agreeing with analysts and critics who say the iPhone isn’t worth $599 and the price was too high to gain acceptance beyond Apple fans to mainstream consumers.

And Steve Jobs’ apology (which is now being coined the “iPology” by MarketWatch’s Tom Bemis) with his open letter on the Apple website is pretty lame.

So, from my perspective, it’s been a bad plan all around. Apple has shown a lack of tact, has treated its loyal customers with disdain, has caused its perspective customers to shy away and it has tainted its integrity.

Changing your tune just a few weeks after a major national launch just does not cut it. And what repercussions is this going to have for Apple’s international launches?

Apple, I’m disappointed in your tactics this time. I hope there are no more marketing and PR faux pas like this coming up in the near future.

Nope, it really was Bronto, an email marketing software company, calling. (Sorry, Walter.)

After a short conversation where I declined the invitation to participate in a demo but passed along my email address to receive information — why not? I’m always looking for a better way to send emails — the folks at Bronto were strangely incommunicado. Typically, after offering up my email address, I receive information right away.

Not so with Bronto. However, I did receive this about three weeks later:

A few small nit-picks:

1. Our conversation wasn’t really “recent” at the time I received this email. It came nearly 2-3 weeks after the initial call.

2. Why hit me with a “double opt-in” at this stage? I spoke to a real person on the phone. Couldn’t the real person send me a real email with their real name attached to it? (Preferably one that contained information on their service, who I could follow-up with if I was interested in learning more?)

3. Who is Susan? Why is she sending this email? I spoke with a man. If not from the actual person I spoke with, shouldn’t the follow-up have come from “info@bronto.com” or “sales@bronto.com?” The jaded conspiracy theorist interactive marketer in me wonders if Bronto’s “info@” and “sales@” addresses have already been blacklisted by a few servers.

4. Pay special attention to the closing line: “If you’d prefer not to receive email from Bronto, simply ignore this email and you will not be added to our list.”

Then came:

A week later, it seemed that I got what should have been the email I originally expected — the one that should have been sent to me right after my call.

Is it wrong of me to hate seeing my name in ALL CAPS? I know names are placed into these types of auto-emails without human intervention. But caps? A little subtlety, please. YEAH, WE CAN PERSONALIZE! LOOK, WE PUT YOUR NAME IN THERE!

To state to the obvious, I never opted-in to that first email. And, this time, Susan wasn’t around to bring consistency to our awkward interaction:

Who are you? Huh? What just happened?

Look, every marketer sends out a bad email once in awhile. A client insists on using the phrase “click here;” the CEO hated the first stock photo, forcing you to replace it at the last minute; the sales guy demands that you to bump up the font size on his email address to 24-point. There are almost always too many chefs in the email kitchen.

But, need I remind you, Bronto is an email marketing company. This is what they do.

Yipes, Bronto.

Yipes.