Twitter Q&A Disasters

Last week, presidential candidate Donald Trump took to twitter to host a question and answer session under the hashtag #AskTrump, which had some pretty predictable results.  While Trump only answered a few of the nicer questions he was asked, the backlash towards him and his campaign far outweighed those positive questions, however he did provide some video answers to questions.  

.@EliseChristine #asktrump pic.twitter.com/KV1NPNYJTC

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2015

If you want to see some of the more hostile questions posed to Mr. Trump during the Q&A session check out the twitter feed here or the article by US Weekly Magazine here or the Wired Article here.  

As someone who used to watch WWE wrestling on a regular basis, my personal favorite was this one. 

@realDonaldTrump @TwitterNYC Did it hurt when @steveaustinBSR gave you the ole Stone Cold Stunner? #AskTrump pic.twitter.com/eetvV8NWTA

— Austin Hunt (@AustinHunt) September 21, 2015

Although, all the people asking about Trump's notoriously bad hairstyles were pretty funny too.

So, what went wrong here? Well, as important as it is to engage your audience on social media, it's just as important to understand the mood of your audience before you do so.  Take for example, the case of British Gas who in October 2013, took to twitter for their own Q&A under the hashtag #AskBG after raising their prices by nearly 10% just in time for winter.  This in a pretty predictable fashion failed pretty badly.  If you want to see some of the best responses, check out the article by The Guardian which is located here.

Another failed Twitter Q&A was run by JP Morgan, which went so badly that it was canceled before it even started. Not only was it canceled before it started, it went so badly that someone decided to have actor Stacy Keach do a dramatic reading of some of the tweets. You can read an article on the fiasco here

So, what is the takeaway from all of this? While engaging your audience via social media is a great tool that can greatly boost your brand, it is of utmost importance that you know how your audience will react, and avoid opening yourself up for questioning right after you do something that just might tick everyone off.  

Politics and the Art of Listening

Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff's book Groundswell discusses the impact that social media, has had on the marketing and public relations. One of the major points is how to take advantage of the rising trends in marketing and PR where the power has shifted to be more in the hands of consumers and a brand is what the people make of it.

Chapter 5 of the book discusses the importance of listening to the groundswell and how proper listening and how actively listening to the groundswell and your customers and target audience can drastically affect your business.  One of the parts that particularly stuck with me was the idea that by listening to the groundswell can actively diminish the "no-more-being-stupid factor". And how negative reviews and comments can point out just how bad some of the things company's do.  Let's apply listening to something that's been in the news a lot recently and will continue to be in the news for the next year. The 2016 presidential election.  Let's look specifically at the campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders whose twitter can be found here and campaign site is located here has focused his campaign on the issues that are affecting middle and lower class America. His campaign has focused on issues such as raising the minimum wage, lowering the cost of education, addressing income and wealth disparity in the United States.  This is a message that has resonated with many American people, and led to a campaign that has seemingly risen from the ground up.

Bernie Sanders and Seattle

Earlier in his campaign Senator Sanders had a speech in Seattle interrupted by members of the Black Lives Matter movement.  During a scheduled campaign stop in Seattle, members of the movement stopped Senator Sanders from speaking, and instead addressed their own important agenda, and throughout the speech, Senator Sanders didn't try to stop them or interrupt, but instead stood back and listened to their message.  His campaign later arranged with prominent members of the larger movement to discuss policy.

Bernie Sanders and Campaign Finance

You also may have seen this image talking about Bernie's donors in comparison to Hillary's.
 
While this picture isn't 100% accurate to the 2016 election solely because data isn't completely available yet, it is an accurate representation of both candidates received donations throughout their political careers.

Bernie Sanders on Being Liberal

Online advertising and the ability to opt out

Advertisements are absolutely everywhere online.  They’re the first things that pop up when you search something on google, they’re on the side of social media sites like Facebook, and often play before any video you try and watch.  What if I told you there was a way to opt out of most if not all of the advertisements you see online.



Adblock is a free internet extension that allows you to disable many of the advertisements you see online. It works by filtering out the advertisements in a website and stopping them from running or being shown. 

Adblock is clearly without its controversy. As explained in the video above, in many cases the advertisements pay for the server upkeep or in the case of sites like YouTube, provide for the livelihood of th content creators themselves. By disabling advertisements through a service like Adblock we are potentially moving the economy of the Internet away from a place where content is free for users and generated through advertisements, and moving towards s future where content is free to view and revenue for upkeep or livelihood is generated through advertisements, and moving towards a future where the currently free content is hidden behind a a monetary pay wall.

When considering products like Adblock, it's important to think about the larger picture and what kind of Internet we want in the future.