After Friday’s horrific mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, I kept up with the latest developments through Twitter (I was nowhere near a television).
Most of the people in my Twitter feed were sharing links to news articles about the shooting or their thoughts about the awful incident. But hours after the shooting, there was still a steady stream of automated, obviously pre-scheduled tweets.
I was particularly struck that several of my fellow media trainers—ostensibly the experts in how to communicate publicly—were still sending out automated tweets.
More than five hours after the shooting, one asked (perhaps ironically), “Do you have a spokesperson who has trouble staying on message? I can help!”
And six hours after the shooting, another touted her ability to help your message appeal on a more “personal” level.
Sigh.
With so many off-note and off-message tweets, it’s no wonder some PR professionals have concluded that automated tweets should be a thing of the past. As Ontario-based Mach One Communications put it on their blog:
“What is the point of Twitter, you ask? It’s certainly not an advertising tool to be used in the middle of the night while you’re nestled up sleeping…The point of Twitter is to engage in real-time.”
Although their conclusion is shared by many social media “best practices” mavens, I disagree.
Let me give you an example of how I use prescheduled tweets. If I’m going out with my wife for the day, I try to leave my phone in my pocket—so I’ll occasionally preschedule a few tweets before leaving for the day. That works fine, as long as I’m in a place where I can check my phone if I receive a “breaking news” text alert about an event like Friday’s; if I do, I can quickly delete any scheduled posts.
My fellow media trainers didn’t do that on Friday. But before I get too sanctimonious here, let me make a candid admission: it could have been me. I can see how I could have been similarly caught—on a plane without WiFi, for example—as Hootsuite “helpfully” sent out my pre-scheduled, non-Newtown-related tweets.
So from now on, here’s my plan. I’ll continue pre-scheduling a few tweets. But if I’m going “off the grid” for more than an hour or so, I won’t schedule any. There’s simply no need to get caught doing something I teach other people to avoid.
What do you think? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
December 17th, 2012 at 8:31 am
Brad,
I think there is no sense in pre-scheduling tweets at all. I thought exactly what you did on Friday, when I too saw a remarkable tone-deaf tweet from a PR “pro” telling people to check out a fun post for the weekend. The whole idea of Twitter is immediacy and engagement. Pre-scheduling tweets runs into both of those goals.
Thanks as always for discussing relevant issues.
Deborah
December 17th, 2012 at 9:37 am
Brad- I agree this is a problem. One thing I did right away was send a tweet encouraging people to delete their scheduled tweets and work on manual for a few days. I also put the same message on Google Plus, Facebook groups, etc to help people that follow me or that I may influence to be aware. I credit Amber Naslund of Brass Tack Thinking for this reminder. Alas, I think there are always going to be some ambulance chasers that don’t get it, no matter how horrific the tragedy. We can help by encouraging our peers (as you’ve done here) to be more involved in their social media presence.
Responsible use of social media is a constant battle. Even among those of us that do this stuff for a living. One thing I would advise–never use a scheduler that does not allow you to go in and delete scheduled tweets or makes it impossible to do it from a phone. Check the dashboard tool you use (and on your phone) to be sure that you can delete anything scheduled. I’ve found Hootsuite’s mobile app on Android to be unreliable for this, so I don’t use Hootsuite to schedule. On their regular desktop app you can have a “pending” stream for this, but just make sure you have the ability to delete anything.
And we all have different sensitivity levels, I guess. Just looking at some headlines this morning, I think the media needs to take a step up as well. One of Fast Company’s top stories: an infographic showing when people get killed in cars. Really?
December 17th, 2012 at 5:00 pm
Good article that made me think, but I do use scheduled tweets and will probably keep doing so. Managing my agency’s twitter account is one of a number of tasks I have to do all day. I like scheduled tweets (and scheduled re-tweets) because it keeps my agency’s name in the mix.
However, I do check the feed throughout the day. My typical habit is to mix real time tweets with the scheduled tweets and, thematically, the align most often with issues important to my agency.
The horrific events on Friday are way outside the type of situation I would have ever tweeted on, but because I, personally, couldn’t think of anything else and few on Twitter we discussing anything else, I felt compelled to issue a tweet on the situation. I just couldn’t help it.
December 17th, 2012 at 5:06 pm
Hector,
It sounds as if you’re managing your mix of scheduled and “live” tweets nicely. As long as we react quickly to breaking news that makes our pre-scheduled tweets look off-note, I don’t have an objection to scheduling a few tweets.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
Brad