Social Media. You're Doing It Wrong.

It’s getting harder and harder to do social media right these days.

There is a collective frustration with brands and organizations playing in the social media space. On one hand, we want brands and organizations to listen to consumers. To be present. To engage and connect in a much more human way. On the other hand, the collective “we” likes to not only judge, but pass judgement. This judgement is never binary, because we all have different thresholds, values and beliefs. What is tongue and cheek to me, is horribly offensive (and taken the wrong way) by you. One another hand (let’s assume you can have three hands), we plead for brands to go silent or not comment, when something major in the world is happening. When things are tough, the last thing people need to see in their feeds is a brand trying to capitalize or monetize the moment. In that instance, we’re asking brands to not say anything, but we’re all adding in our own opinions, statements and rhetoric. With that, we’re saying to brands: don’t be like us. Be corporations. Is that reasonable? Is that social? Isn’t a brand a bunch of human beings – like you and I?

In some instances, it’s obvious that there is something being done in poor taste, but is it always the case?

Yesterday marked the five year anniversary since Osama bin Laden was killed by American soldiers. The CIA decided to live tweet the day, like it was happening in real time, to give everyone a sense of how that historic day truly unfolded. Interesting? Smart? Bad taste? Terrible idea? As you can imagine, there were a myriad of reactions. Andrew Carter of CJAD radio wanted to unpack whether or not this was a bad idea, and why organizations might live tweet anything?

Here is our conversation: CJAD Radio – The Andrew Carter Show - Osama bin Laden was killed by American soldiers five years ago today.