A f*ckin' birdie told me

Magnet #1111 - Blue bird

Had to use this little Borders-going-bankrupt birdie magnet for today because I noticed that a lot of my email traffic lately has been about Twitter.

Whether it's me helping a new client become more active with their social media outreach, emailing relevant Tweets to colleagues and friends, or gossiping about who said what or who @'d who, Twitter keeps ending up in my email inbox. And my Facebook. And messageboards. And texts. It's crazy.

I do kinda wonder what the stats are for folks actually using the Twitter home page, versus using social media clients like TweetDeck or MediaFunnel or HootSuite, etc. I will say that when Tweeting for a client, the only time I feel safe that I won't eff it up is when I'm on the client's actual Twitter page, versus my own page or my TweetDeck.

That's why whenever I see any stories of social media practitioners messing up, I cringe for whomever hit enter or send on a bad Tweet.

@Adfreak Tweeted their coverage of the ChryslerAutos Twitterfeed Eff up, and I felt bad for the employee who got fired over it. Mind you, I laughed because it was a funny as hell Tweet, but still, felt bad. It wasn't the profanity that got me, because the world's full of the F word (I mean, hello, Oscars). But, when the @ChryslerAutos av is stamped "Imported from Detroit" yeah, saying Detroit Motor City "can't fucking drive" flies in the face of that messaging. And what else could Chrysler do but Tweet a very corporate response...on their blog?

Their response was completely opposite of the Red Cross beer story from last month, where they completely lampooned it and made the situation work for them and Dogfish beer. I don't know if they fired the non-drunk employee, but they handled the situation deftly, and with rather endearing personality.

Honestly, for me, it's like watching a train wreck, seeing brands and individuals navigate social media. Twitter and Facebook are full of branding screw-ups because of multiple account handling, and we'll see more and more in the next few years.

As for me, my love/hate with Twitter continues...but it doesn't stop me from waiting for that next train wreck. I just hope it's not me.