Twitter Rant Archives - Clarity Digital Marketing Dallas Fort Worth

Robert Riggs and Brad Besancon use the Twitter Rant by an Assistant Football Coach and its fallout on recruiting for a lesson on the use of checks and balances when it comes to posting in social media.

Standing at the 3rd base foul line at a Dallas baseball field, these social media experts offer advice on how not to hit fouls when it comes to Twitter and other social media platforms.

Besancon who started and managed social media for the Dallas Cowboys in his previous career talks about lessons learned.

In short, take a breath, think it over, ask a colleague for an opinion before you tap send. Or push delete.

Links to articles about the recruiting fallout for Texas A&M football:

Twitter Channel where the rant started, Aaron Morehead, Wide Receiver’s Coach at Texas A&M

Dallas Morning News Sports Day

Sports Illustrated

Transcript

Robert: Hi I’m Robert Riggs and this is Brad Besancon with the Clarity Digital Clip of the week, standing at the third base foul line, to talk about how not to hit a foul in social media. Because today Sportscenter is alive, Twitter is alive over a tweet by Texas A&M assistant football coach who’s over committing big controversy.

Brad: Or isn’t.

Robert: Yeah. The lesson is though of all of this.

Brad. Yeah. I think the lesson is though, is when you’re in a frustrated state or an emotional state, or you might just be pissed off; don’t jump on social media to express those feelings; if you’re representing a brand. Your personal stuff is your personal stuff. But when you’re out there as a football coach; we see it all the time in sports. Somebody goes off ‘the refs didn’t make a good call’ or whatever, and they go off for ten minutes on these rants; they call them social media rants. But if you’re a representative of a company, or you’re a team member of a university, or a major sports team, or whatever the case may be; take a step back, take 24 hours. If you need to do something like that from an emotional standpoint, get a piece of paper and write it down.

Robert: We do advise our business clients to hit that emotional cord with their audience.

Brad: Yeah and that’s where it gets tricky. Because we do want to attach, if you will, or connect with our clients or our followers in social media, on the emotional level. That’s the whole point, right? The whole point of social media is to make that deeper connection. It’s not just about coupons and brands. It’s ‘you’re connected with me on a deeper level’; but don’t go to the extreme. Because the minute you go the extreme, they’re going to leave because you’re going to make somebody upset, right?

Robert: Right.

Brad: You remember that from politics and some of your background in journalism.

Robert: Sure, and in broadcast journalism; we had a checks and balances in that we had producers or editors who looked at our copy before it went out. You had a second set, maybe a third set of eyes on it, so you didn’t get into trouble. Look, ask a cohort, ask a person next to you, ask a friend to take a look at it. And if you have the slightest question or doubt about your emotions at the moment, you really want somebody else to look at it. You know we do that together, because I know I’m the one who kind of pushes the envelope sometimes; and you come in with kind of a corporate view like ‘oh we’ve got to town that down.’

Brad: Yeah, and I think a checks and balances is the perfect way to look at it. Have someone on your team. Not necessarily your boss or something, maybe it is your coworker or someone who’s on your team. It’s to just review the stuff. We’re not saying be mister and missus politically correct, because sometimes in order to connect with your audience, you do have to be kind of in their face and out there and pushing that envelope. It’s just the manner in which you do it, how you do it, and remember; we hear it all the time; you hear it in your personal relationships or whatever. ‘Well I can’t tell what you meant by this on this tweet’, ‘I can’t tell what you meant by this on this text’. You have to think the same thing when you’re out there representing your company and talking to people is; they’re just reading words. They’re not with you in your presence. So you’ve got to be careful.

Robert: Okay, so the take away from this weeks Clarity Digital Clip is; step out of that batter’s box. Are you going to hit a foul and it will be ugly. Thanks, see you next week.