Twitter fails = Twails

A while back I sent a tweet I wanted to suck back out of cyberspace in the worst way.   Now, before you go searching through all of my past tweets, it was  nothing more than a breech of family etiquette, not an obvious “career dissipation light blinking” move that I have occasionally flirted with.  Nevertheless, I was uncomfortable, embarrassed, and madly scrambling to figure out how to fix it.  Us emergency responder types are all about fixing things fast.  But, when it comes to fixing bad social media messaging, especially in emergency situations things are much more complicated.  In thinking about documenting my messaging misadventures, I’ve been trying to come up with a clever name for tweet mistakes.  “Twart”? Nope, someone snagged it to appropriately describe sending a tweet without a message.  “Mistweet”? Sure, but it reminds me of the inadequate term “malfunction” used to describe the Challenger explosion.  No, I need to find a term that defines epic tweet fails.  Wait, that’s it!  What about “Twail”?  It has the bird theme, ties in Twitter and major fails. In the jurisprudence world, TWAIL stands for ” Third World Approaches to International Law”.  I’ll let the scholars keep using it to describe decolonization, etc…. (I do have a degree in Political Science).  With-or without –  their permission,  I’m warping the term.

OK, with that issue settled, let us focus on what I consider potential Twails to avoid or address when using real time SM in emergency response communications.   Before I start, please understand be aware that I have done no formal research on this topic, other than my “applied research” of experience.

• Flaming – If you personally attack a person or organization, get ready for the tar and feathers.  In the new SM world, anyone can say anything they want, anytime they want.  In the heat of the battle, it is tempting to strike back.  If you do, you lose.  End of story.  There isn’t a road high enough you can take when dealing with a 14 year old blogger pretending to be a 40 year old precinct committee chair who says you don’t know how to do your job.  Get over it.  Be polite, factual, timely and move on.
• Getting it wrong – This one is impossible to avoid.  Of course you will be wrong from time to time, especially in complex or large situations.  Emergency events make us process and deal with plentiful erroneous information, and sometimes only time and consequences reveal the truth.  But, once that happens, we need to do two things;  1.  Provide the correct information (ASAP) and 2. Acknowledge the error.  Explaining why may help, but I also think it can muddy the waters.
• Ignoring – OK, so two people think your folks did a bad job on an incident…… within 20 minutes the message has been re-tweeted 200 times. So, do you say to yourself; “these brain surgeons don’t have a clue about what it is like in the (fill in the blank) world!  Wrong….. no, you MONITOR, LISTEN CAREFULLY AND RESPOND in at least two ways;  1.  Directly engage with the most vocal messengers, and/or 2.  Craft overarching messages that address their concerns, and allow you to get your message out.
• Sounding like a bureaucrat – Easy trap to fall into.  During crisis, wherever it is , people are concerned and care.  Stating facts is easy.  Demonstrating empathy and legitimate strength during crisis is an art form.
• Speculating – If you don’t know for sure, keep your digits off the keys…unless you think whatever it is might blow up. In that case, you can’t type fast enough!  Leave the speculation to Anderson Cooper.
• Freelancing – Everyone with a smart phone is an amateur reporter.  That means those with the responsibility to accurately report and disseminate information must be accurate, consistent and strategic.   If you are not part of the information team during a crisis, keep the damn phone in your pocket (exception;  to call your family to tell them you are OK).  Emergency responders have, and will continue to lose their jobs over unauthorized disclosure of emergency incident information.  It may not only be illegal, but it may also cost you your everything you own.
• Being late “Now is Too Late” is the name of a excellent book written by my friend Gerald Baron that prophetically outlined the impact of social media on crisis communications.  The title says it all.  Emergency response organizations who currently do not use, or worse discount, social media tools are setting themselves up for a PR nightmare.  Get with the program.  Now.

OK, so what can you do if you post a Twail?  There seems to be two schools of thought;  Delete immediately, or leave it alone?   Once a tweet is out there, consider it stuck in cyberspace.  It can be RT’d before you have a chance to delete, and even deleted  you have no idea if someone has already read it and passed it on.  Scary huh?  My advice… monitor to see if anyone RT’d it, commented, etc…. and if it has legs consider sending damage control tweets.  If no one seems to be picking it up as an issue, let sleeping dogs lie and hope they don’t wake up and chew you up.  Anyone else have any advice in this arena? Surely others have sent Twail….

(Updated: 2/16/11)  Well, it looks like the Red Cross sent a twail last night, probably about the time I was finishing this latest post.   http://redcrosschat.org/2011/02/16/twitter-faux-pas/ The twail was fairly benign in the grand scheme of things, and their response was spot on.  Well done ARC!