But, alas, the point of this article is not to talk about what companies do right (what’s the fun and shame in that?). I am here to highlight some of the biggest fails, flops, and social media disasters that have resulted in adverse consequences, even for some very big names.

While it would be entertaining to simply point and laugh at these poor, unfortunate social souls, I want to take their less-than-successful attempts and identify why they didn’t work and what they could (should) have done.

Example 1: Epic Tweet Fail

Now, while I am a social media professional, I’m pretty humble:  I don’t claim to be an “expert.” This fact, however, further proves my point ­­– it does not take an “expert” to spot the “what not to do.”

Let’s take the Justine Sacco case as an example. Needless to say, this PR exec (yep, you heard me…her entire job is telling other people how NOT to do things like this) was fired before her plane landed in South Africa.

Twitter is real, folks. Other people can and will see what you write and it will get retweeted. This is typically the goal and what people strive to achieve: the ever elusive retweet. Be especially mindful of this when you represent a company. In this case, getting noticed by Buzzfeed is what shot her now infamous tweet to stardom.

While there is no light to shed on this situation or any possible improvements that can be made (other than don’t say heartless, racist things), there is somewhat of a silver lining to this thoughtless incident. The clichéd expression “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure” applies to this situation, as one savvy interwebber set www.justinesacco.com to redirect to the non-profit group, www.aidforafrica.org. As a result, the group has seen an impressive increase in donations, jumping to 3/hour as opposed to 3/day. Sorry, Justine, your handiwork was a lose/lose for you but a win/win for good Samaritans and people trying to make the social world a better place.

Example 2: #EpicHashtagFail

Hashtags are an ideal way to group Tweets and track discussion topics through keywords. They are integral to success on Twitter, and have recently been adopted by Facebook and Google+ as well. You can now unify cross-network promotions and prompt participation from multiple networks to improve reach and shares. They are intended to drive conversation and connect people with similar interests. Sounds great, right? What could possibly go wrong?

With great hashtags comes great responsibility. You must think through all of the implications of using a hashtag campaign and consider all of the possibilities and ways that it can fail before implimentation. Your hashtag must have context and add value for your followers. Failure to consider these will surely lead your hashtag to fade away into the Twitterverse and be forgotten faster than DrawSomething (yeah, remember that great app?). Or worse, it may lead to a PR nightmare as exemplified by McDonald’s.

Although potentially one of the most notorious hashtag marketing fails, McDonalds’ #McDStories campaign taught us all an invaluable Twitter lesson. Last January, McDonald’s launched their campaign with the comically vague #McDStories. They intended to receive stories of people’s favorite foods or how much their children love Happy Meals. What they got was, in fact, the opposite. People hijacked the hashtag and applied it to McDonalds horror stories.

McDonald’s ended up pulling the campaign within two hours of launching it. That didn’t stop the people from continuing to post with the branded hashtag.

The company did the right thing by simply ending their campaign early and not responding negatively to their Twitter trolls. Instead, they took responsibility for their mistake (communicated via Twitter, of course) and owned up to realizing that they should have been more thorough in their consideration of the hashtag.

McDonald’s lesson on vague hashtag campaigns can be considered a cautionary tale for us all. Be sure to really think a hashtag through before launching it. If considering a branded campaign, realize the potential it has to go viral and what that can and will do for your company, both good and bad: and accept that once you launch the campaign, the audience controls it – not your brand.

Example 3: Epic Facebook Meltdown

Our social bff, Facebook, is capable of creating a strong presence for a brand or business within the social realm. With photos and posts clearly visible on the profile page, people often look to Facebook when researching a company. That is why it is absolutely crucial to remain positive and supportive of your followers, and not attack them when they may leave a less-than-ideal review.

The prime example of a company not following through on this key objective can be found in the complete meltdown of Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro. After receiving bad reviews following the airing of Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares (in which the owners were dropped by Ramsey after being “too difficult to work with”) the two owners took to Facebook to “defend” themselves and their restaurant. Now, I am not saying that explaining your company’s practice on Facebook is always a bad idea, but it is ALWAYS a bad idea to fire back at your followers with nasty, hateful comments (a lot of which don’t even make logical or grammatical sense).

Facebook should be a platform on which your brand can address issues raised by the public, but done so respectfully. The inevitable happened for Amy’s Bistro: they lost A LOT of social followers as well as previously faithful fans of the restaurant itself. There is no quicker way to ruin your company’s name than to fail to take responsibility for your actions, and then top it off by placing blame on your fans and followers.

Clearly, the lesson learned is to keep your cool when responding to negative feedback. It does not make sense to fight fire with fire, but instead to try and come to a reasonable solution, or at the very least be respectful.

The Takeaway

Social media, while relatively new, holds a lot of power in the marketing world. It has the ability to make or, as we have now seen, break a brand. When a brand abuses the power of social media, it more often than not comes back to bite them. So please, let these epic fails show you what NOT to do and try not to learn from experience. Use good judgment when posting and always ask for at least a second opinion. And don’t ever be embarrassed to ask for help. Social media is a new field, and the only constant is change. Building a list of trusted resources you can call for help is critical.

The post How Not to be an #EPIC Social Media Fail appeared first on Portent.

We all know that the Super Bowl is the Super Bowl of, well, Super Bowls.  It’s even MORE super for mega-brands with colossal marketing budgets, fancy Hollywood contacts and burping frogs.  But not everyone is a Coke… Or even a Pepsi.  Consequently, if you’re a mid-sized business looking to maximize your advertising dollars this Sunday, the place to spend that cash isn’t on TV, but online.

Say you’re Shasta.  Or Thrifty Car Rental.  Or Kettle Brand.  Sure you have an ad budget, but at $3.8 million per 30 second TV spot, those dollars are burned in a half-minute.

But social media is different.  There’s a lower financial barrier to entry and seemingly endless opportunities to improve your “bang for the buck.”  So rather than blow your budget on 30 seconds, small businesses and mid-sized concerns should stretch their Benjamins across Twitter and Facebook.

As Portent’s President Steve Gahler says, “You can’t own the Super Bowl, but you can own the space where everyone talks about the Super Bowl.”

Here’s how you, too, can put some points on the board during the biggest media marketing event of the year.

The Game Day audience

Last year, 111.3 million people watched the Super Bowl – the largest audience ever.

And according to NBC (last year’s broadcaster), 2.1 million people watched the game live online.  Yes, a much (much) smaller market, but potentially a more tech-savvy, higher-income one as well.  Add that number to the masses following the game on social media and you have a nice chunk of engaged fans to market to.

This year’s broadcaster CBS will be streaming live on their site, as will nfl.com.

TV ad costs

Up, up and away:

According to Forbes:  “Current reports plug [Super Bowl XLII’s] ad price at $3.8 million, up from the $3.5 million that companies paid for a spot at [last] year’s game, and that is just the cost of air time. Ad budgets for Super Bowl commercials can run as high as $5 million per 30-second spot.”

So, potentially $8.8 million for 30 seconds.  Yes, it’s the biggest media event in the world, but…

Super Bowl ads don’t work for everyone

According to NBC News:  “Most of the top 10 [Super Bowl] spenders are perennial also-rans. Yum! Brands, owner of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, spent $67 million over the past 10 years. Meanwhile, McDonald’s, the indisputable market leader, spent less than half that amount and is not a top 10 spender. Similarly, E*Trade, well-known for the talking baby campaign, spent more than any other online brokerage firm, yet remains fourth in the industry.”

Most mid- to-small-size companies can’t afford to blow $9 million on a spot that doesn’t guarantee a great ROI.  And for all their hype, Super Bowl ads don’t.  For example, check out this graphic from nfl.com’s Football Freakonomics:

Social media and television: Partners in engagement

According to the latest Nielsen Social Media Report, “As of June 2012, more than 33 percent of Twitter users had actively tweeted about TV-related content. Some 44 percent of U.S. tablet owners and 38 percent of U.S. smartphone owners use their devices daily to access social media while watching television.”

And those numbers are an aggregation.  Super Bowl engagement is even higher.

But does social really convert?

Even the NFL is using social media to evaluate Super Bowl ads’ ROI.  The NFL’s Head of Sales Seth Winter says social media improves an ad’s TV value, allowing them to charge more.  So why not start with social if you can’t afford the TV kit and caboodle?

Where to spend your money: Twitter

In the final moments of last year’s game, Twitter interaction was averaging over 12,000 tweets per second.  PER SECOND.  And the grand total for Super Bowl related tweets?  13.7 million.

From Zander Lurie, SVP, Strategic Development at CBS:

They refer to it as a “second screen” experience: the audience watches conventional media while using new media to comment on / interact with it.  Take a look at this graphic by Nielsen:

And for social proof, do you know who’s monitoring Twitter on Super Bowl Sunday?  All of those enormous in-game advertisers… For real time feedback, they turn to the social media network.

(Interesting aside: With social media, you may not even lose an impression due to a pit stop: according to the Nielsen report, 32% of people use social networking in the bathroom.)

Option 1: Promoted Tweets

A tip from Twitter’s advertising department: “Leverage real-time intent: Run Promoted Tweets in search to target relevant [timely] terms that have trended in the past on Twitter and are likely to once again spark high levels of discussion.”

A Promoted Tweet looks like this:

And just in time to collect your Super Bowl dollars, Twitter made improvements to Promoted Tweets:  You can now target negative keywords.  Their example: “If you sell bacon, you can now keep your campaigns more than six degrees apart from Kevin Bacon by using ‘Kevin’ as a negative keyword.”

You can also target your promoted Tweets to geographic regions (a great advertising option for brick and mortar businesses), existing follower base and gender.

But the best thing about Promoted Tweets?  You only pay when people play.  From Twitter: “Promoted Tweets are priced on a Cost-per-Engagement (CPE) basis, so you only pay when someone retweets, replies to, clicks or favorites your Promoted Tweet.”  Pretty sweet deal for someone with a small ad budget.

Option 2: Sponsored hashtags

Also known as Promoted Trends, a sponsored hashtag will appear at the top of Twitter’s Trending Topics list at the left of a user’s feed.

Anecdotal evidence of their efficacy – at least for bigger brands – is positive.  For example, Coke used a promoted tweet during the 2010 World Cup and snatched 86 million impressions with a 6% engagement rate.

Today, the price tag of a 24-hour sponsored hashtag is around $120,000, though Twitter is expected to hike that cost for this year’s Bowl.  It’s a bargain at even twice or three times that figure, however, when you consider that your brand will stay in the spotlight for 24 hours (compared to a 30 second, $3.8 million TV spot).

Sponsored hashtags also appear on iPhones, Android mobile devices, Tweetdeck and Hootsuite, making them a good choice for folks tweeting in front of their flatscreens.

A caveat: As with any social or viral marketing campaign, you do not control the interaction.  It is important to consider that the hashtag, once created, takes on a life of its own.  Some of your feedback may be negative. For example, check out the Republican National Committee’s #AreYouBetterOff debacle.

And for those of you truly looking for a bargain, you can get ahead of the game and capitalize on tags that you KNOW will be trending; in 2013, #ManofSteel, #IronMan3 and #Hangover3 are all pretty safe bets.  You can also check out hashtag search engines like Tweet Archivist or Tweet Charts to see what people are talking about most.

Option 3: Promoted accounts

While a promoted account won’t necessarily be visible on everyone’s Twitter page, it allows for greater targeting of potential customers. Twitter’s algorithm recommends a user follow your account only if they fit a specific profile, resulting in less wasted coverage.

Like Promoted Tweets, you only pay for interaction – specifically when someone follows your account. You decide how much you want to spend per day or new follower, and you can geo-target.

Our in-house social media guru Doug Antkowiak also suggests: “Promoted accounts target people based on who the target account is already following.  If you want to be seen by a specific niche, you need to go follow those people first.  Followerwonk is a great place to start.”

Where to spend your money: Facebook

Are people really looking at their Facebook pages during the big game?

Allfacebook.com studied the wall posts of more than 1,400 brands during game time and found that engagement during the Super Bowl soared 60%.

Not unexpectedly, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg maintains advertising on Facebook is better than advertising on television.  More unexpectedly, she had this stat to back it up:  Facebook’s daily traffic is over three times greater than Super Bowl viewership.

Option 1: Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads allow you to select a page or piece of content you’d like to promote.

Facebook has greater targeting dexterity than Twitter, allowing you to select from a number of demographic categories, including location, age, gender and interests.  You set your campaign budget and are charged every time someone sees your ad or sponsored story.  Then choose whether you’d like to optimize for engagement, impressions or clicks.

If a mid-sized business elects to go with Facebook Ads, it may want to create some pieces of quality Super Bowl-centric content to promote on Game Day.  Craft the message for your target market and select the demographic filters that correspond.

Option 2: Facebook Apps

More expensive but great at brand building, Facebook apps allow you to more fully engage with a potential customer base, often via a contest, game or service.  It also enables an advertiser to control a corner of the social media juggernaut, increasing user engagement rates.

With highlights like automatic bookmarking, newsfeed stories and a notifications API, Facebook apps are front and center for engaging potential customers.  Once you reach 10 active users, your app will be automatically included in the Facebook search index.  Facebook Insights also allows you to accurately track user engagement and referral traffic.

In fact this year, Doritos is using a Facebook App to choose their network Super Bowl commercial as the latest incarnation of their popular “Crash the Super Bowl” promotion.

While posting your app to Facebook is free, building it can cost anywhere from $500 to tens of thousands of dollars.

Your Game Day playbook

1. Start with content.  Create something relevant to the Super Bowl, but not necessarily about football.  Think of your target market and generate a campaign that connects your product or service to the event in a way that engages them.  For a conventional media example, the Puppy Bowl entertains Animal Planet’s demographic (pet owners) with a silly, cute ‘game’ that is relevant enough to capitalize on the Super Bowl’s PR, but distant enough they can carve their own niche.
2. Capitalize on Twitter trends through promoted tweets and sponsored hashtags.  Also take advantage of some ‘free’ promotion with Tweets using hashtags that are certain to be popular.
3. Anything that is cost-per-whatever, consider using.  You’re only paying for people who have seen your Facebook ad/Promoted tweet/account/etc.  No wasted coverage.
4. As always, monitor and measure.  Improve.  You’ll have another shot next year.

The takeaway

“Playing your own game” is about forging a relationship with your customer base on your terms.  Small- to mid-sized businesses should grasp the opportunity to capitalize on a trending, water cooler topic like the Super Bowl, but they must do so strategically, for the right price, and be able to measure the result.

For anyone who’s not Coke (or even Pepsi), the smart money’s online.  There you’ll have time to build a brand identity… One that stands a chance against a talking gecko and some Clydesdales.

Ultimately, you can spend $3.8 million on 30 seconds of TV which may or may not catch fire… Or you can become part of the excited, week-long dialogue that surrounds the big game, engaging potential consumers on a topic they are already vested in.

Now it may be too late to implement a strategy for the Super Bowl – it IS on Sunday – but there’s still a little time to capitalize on the Female Super Bowl: the Oscars air on Sunday, Feb. 24.

Am I missing any other viable social media ad outlets for Super Bowl Sunday?  Should we bet on YouTube?  Pinterest? (Hint: not them.)  Let me know in the comments below.

The post Social Bowl XLVII: Why a Mid-Sized Firm or Small Business Must Play Its Own Game on Sunday appeared first on Portent.

Shooting a video on Vine is dead simple. Press your thumb on the screen to record, lift your thumb off the screen to stop. The editing system is so easy, my Taiwanese mountain dog could do it.

Since Twitter created the app, you can expect two things:

1. Vine uses Twitter rules in updates

Hashtags and tagging other accounts work the same as they do on Twitter. Posts uploaded in the Vine social network don’t have to adhere to Twitter’s 140 character limits. However, when sharing Vine updates on Twitter, the Vine URL will take up roughly 21 characters.

If you don’t want Twitter to take a bite out of your message, limit your Vine status updates to 110 characters.

2. Facebook is pissed about Vine

As Mike Isaac reported on All Things D, there was a brief moment that Vine published updates to Facebook. No such luck only one day later. If users try to publish on Facebook or search for Facebook friends on the Vine app, they’ll be left with an annoying error message.

This isn’t the first rodeo for Facebook and Twitter. Back in December, Twitter disconnected from Facebook’s newly acquired Instagram by removing access to Twitter cards, which disabled the best part of Instagram’s photo integration.

Since you’ve always wondered, here’s our Vine-enabled six second tour through the Portent office at the Smith Tower (as well as some other random moments).

The post Twitter’s Vine App Looks Awesome appeared first on Portent.

This update affects both Twitter’s web client and their mobile app, which was a surprise to many brands. Read on for best practices regarding the new Twitter headers, and the new mobile app.

New Twitter Headers

Your profile picture now lives in the header section. Following/follower stats sit just below the header.

The basic navigation remains the same: clicking the tabs in the left-hand column (Tweets, Following, Followers, Favorites, Lists) keeps users on your profile. So, if someone comes to my profile and wants to see who I’m following, that list will display below the new header section.

Header Setup, Dimensions & Tips

Uploading your new header image is simple:

1. Prepare an image. Bigger is better as long as you don’t exceed 1252 x 626 (the optimal viewing size across all devices). Remember, your bio and other information will display over the top of the image. So pick something that’ll keep that text readable. Anything smaller than 700 or so pixels wide looks like a game of Minecraft, though.
2. Log into your Twitter account.
3. Head to “Settings” from the drop-down menu in the top right of the Twitter menu bar. From here, select “Design” as if you were going to change your profile’s theme or background image. Scroll down a bit and you’ll see the new header image option.
   
4. You won’t need to spend a lot of time editing the size of the image you want to use. After you choose an image, Twitter lets you customize how you want to display the image. This is why I recommend choosing a large image to upload, as you can easily zoom in and out to get the right look.
   

And, since it always helps to have the actual dimensions: In the web client, the header image itself is 520 x 260.

Some other tips:

• From my tests, it seems that Twitter darkens the header image. Beware of this if you’re uploading a dark image. If you don’t like the finished product on your profile, try brightening the photo slightly and re-uploading.
• Keep the image simple. It will compete with your profile photo and bio for attention.
• As of right now, there appears to be no way to change the text color in the header section. The default is white, so you’ll probably want to upload an image without a lot of bright colors to avoid clashing.
• Remember, if your header image doesn’t go well with your background image or theme, everything is customizable. You may want to worry more about making your header section aesthetically pleasing since it’s home to your bio and is front and center on the new profile layout.

Some Twitter Header Inspiration

If you look hard enough, some people and brands have already updated their profiles. Here are some early favorites.

Etsy

Jeff Elder

NME

Setting the header via Twitter Mobile

In addition to the big changes for the web-based version, Twitter released an update to its mobile app – version 5.0 for iOS and version 3.4 for Android. If you’d like to setup your header image via the app, here’s how:

1. Navigate to the “Me” section of the app, tap the gear symbol and then select “Edit profile.” Choose “Header.”
   
2. You can take a photo for your new header image or choose an image that’s already stored on your phone. If you choose an existing photo, you can zoom in or out before it’s uploaded.
   
3. Once you’re happy with your new header image, your mobile profile will look something like this. To see your bio, location and website, slide the header to the left.
    

Photo Stream

The other new feature on your mobile profile is a photo stream strip, located right below your last three tweets. Slide the photos to the left and you can browse all the photos a user has shared in their tweets.

We’ll play around with this and give you an update soon.

One quick note about the photo stream: As Android Police points out, the stream only includes images uploaded through Twitter or Instagram.

That covers the major changes I’ve seen so far.

What’s your take on the headers and redesigned profiles? Let me know in the comments.

The post Best Practices: New Twitter Headers and Mobile Updates appeared first on Portent.

You may not know this yet, but there is a limit to how many of your fellow tweeters you can follow. I found out the hard way.

As a writer, I am a good observer. So when I joined Twitter, I watched how other writers handled their accounts. Writers follow (and are followed by) each other in droves. Some paranormal e-book authors follow 60,000 or more people. I began aggressively following other writers and literati thinking there was no limit to the inspiration available.

I was wrong.

“ Twitter limits following behavior [because] these limits help us improve site performance and reliability and help us make Twitter a nice place for everyone.” —Twitter

Aggressive is a bad word for Twitter. They use the word 4 times (out of 456 words) on their Following Rules and Best Practices Page. And never in a good way.

But when I say I follow other writers aggressively, I mean actively. I’ve sought out people with shared interests. A lot of them. Since June, I’ve followed 2,000 people I wanted to learn more about. And therein lies the problem. Twitter says I can’t follow anyone else until I have more followers. Here’s why that doesn’t make Twitter a nicer place for me.

I believe in the limits of my own importance

Being merely one human out of nearly 7,000,000,000 on this planet, I expect to notice more people than notice me. I think it’s weird when people have nearly the same number of followers as following—as if they are in a followback loop where they only want to know about people who like them first.

I currently follow three times as many people as follow me. I don’t think that’s because I’m boring. It’s because I like listening more than talking. Plus my following list covers many different topics and those tweeps may not share my interests.

Here’s who I follow and why:

• Marketers like SEO Chicks give me tips to do my day job better. Foreign marketers like Why Not Blue refresh my language skills while teaching me about SEO Montreal-style.
• A Dangerous Business and other travel bloggers fuel my dreams of someday using those language skills again.
• I learn about the publishing industry from agents, publishers, reviewers, and lit zines. I like being reminded of the people behind the good work at places like Melville House and Dalkey Archive.
• Other writers share my struggles and triumphs. Tweeting to Sarah Martinez about how much I enjoyed her book launch is a “thanks for the invite” and good promo for her.
• Visual artists and musicians offer different looks at creativity. BOMB Magazine posts archive interviews that hit all the right notes.
• Popular blogs like Huffington Post make sure I’m not totally clueless on the happenings of the world.
• Washington State DOT, Seattle Police, and local media give me the news I need right now.
• My friends and I support and promote each other in Twitter and real life. Ann Hedreen, Liza Wolff-Francis, Icess Fernandez, and Kim Brown all keep me grounded.

Most of those people will never follow me back. I don’t expect them to. But to get to follower/following parity which Twitter seems to want, I need a wide variety of strangers to follow me that I don’t plan to follow back. That just isn’t me…

I believe in community

I follow back. Not indiscriminately, but if you want to take time to get to know me, I’d like to get to know you too. We can do that on Facebook, but unfortunately you’ll have to make the first move on Twitter (and wait until I hit some magical unpublished ratio—PR and the Social Web says the magic formula is number of followers plus 10%—that means I can follow you back).

Although our day to day importance in each other’s lives may be small, I’m still glad to connect. The world is a lonely place without connections.

I believe in serendipity

Twitter is like Penn Station at rush hour. Somewhere in the cacophony is a voice telling an interesting story (a lot of them really), and I believe that Fate (and a little judgment on my part) will point me in the direction of the information and inspiration I crave. These “random” interactions prevent creative stagnation.

I believe in you

I don’t dump people I follow without good reason. Three or four tweets about how no one likes you or how you are the only important person in the word will get you dumped. And I block spammers. But mostly you’ll find me a pretty open and generous audience. Which means it’s nearly impossible to winnow down my following list so I can follow new people.

What do I do now?

Can I get around this follower limit? Yes. I could start dumping people I don’t LOVE (but I won’t). Or I could build lists of people I am interested in but don’t follow and then set up a stream in HootSuite, but why should I have to? Why should it be so difficult?

”If you’ve reached the account-based follow limit (2,000 users), you’ll need to wait until you yourself have more followers before you can follow additional users.” —Twitter

I can accept that I have to sit out following for a while (not that I have any choice). But it annoys the crap out of me that I can’t take an active aggressive role in building my Twitter feed. So, Destiny…will I get more followers or is everything I need already in my feed?

Are you wildly inspired by too many tweeps? How do you handle your follower/following ratio?

The post Why I Hate the Twitter Follow Limit appeared first on Portent.

Our class differences didn’t matter in that perfect moment, and it seemed like our love was meant to last forever. She even let me sketch her in the nude, which was basically awesome. The only reason our love never worked out was my death in 1912.

True, that’s actually the plot of the 1997 blockbuster film Titanic, but it still illustrates my point that first impressions are important. And that’s exactly what I’m talking about for Twitter Tuesday.

First Impressions on Twitter

One Twitter feature I haven’t seen much buzz around is the profile summary you see when you click on someone’s Twitter handle. It used to be that a click on someone’s handle would take you directly to their profile – now, before you can click through to someone’s complete profile, you’ll see this cute little profile summary pop up.

Isn’t that lovely? Yes. Yes it is.

That profile summary is how people first meet you. It’s your short resume. Your elevator pitch.

The Elements of Your Twitter Profile Summary

So let’s take a look at what people are going to see about you when they reach this profile summary. There are some steps you can take to optimize your Twitter profile for this.

Twitter Profile Picture

Your profile picture is the only true image in your profile summary, and it even appears four times — so you know it’s the most important part.

And you know how I feel about profile pictures. Your profile picture matters most on Twitter, where people only know you by your short sentences and picture. Find a great headshot, or something that represents your Twitter personality.

Twitter Bio

Your Twitter profile summary comes up when someone clicks on your name. And why would someone click on your name? Because they want to know more about you. And more importantly – because they’re looking for a reason to follow you. Give them a reason!

Having a great Twitter bio is a great place to give that reason. There is a lot you can do with your 160 character bio to tell people who you are. My main advice is to be original. So I’ll leave that difficult task up to you, and just list some things people don’t want to see in your bio:

• A bunch of hashtags and links. You get this when people try to jam everything into their bio and don’t consider how it looks to the rest of us. While they’re happy because they fit in #SEM, #SEO, #PPC and links to both of their websites – I’m avoiding their spammy bio like the plague (which was caused by rats carrying fleas using hashtags).
• “Tweets are my own.” Who else’s tweets would they be? And what does this possibly “protect” you from? Professionals see this in other bios and think they’re supposed to say it too. That’s the only explanation for this stupid trend. You’ve only got 160 characters and you’re wasting them.
• Too many buzz words. If your bio is full of clichéd, overused phrases from your industry… well, you don’t sound like a very interesting person to me.

Social Proof

And back to Ellen DeGeneres’ profile summary. Nothing like some good, old-fashioned social proof to convince people you’re worth a follow, right? In your profile summary, we’ve got:

• Followed by: This field shows users whom they follow that follow you. This leads to conclusions like, “Oh, my friend Karen follows Ellen DeGeneres, and Karen is smart and cool. So I should follow Ellen DeGeneres.”
• Follow numbers: This shows how wide of a net you cast, and how involved you are in the Twitter community. And no – you don’t need 12 million followers like Ellen for someone to want to follow you. It is actually the relationship between your followers and the number of people you’re following that will say the most about your profile.

Follow Numbers

What do your follow numbers say about you?

• Followed >>> Following: You’re a top influencer. People will follow you if they like what you have to say.
• Followed > Following: You’re a wise voice, but you don’t have celebrity status. People may just want to hear what you have to say, but they will also want to engage.
• Followed < Following: You’re a peer. People will follow you to be followed back so you can engage.
• Followed <<< Following: You’re a spam bot.

Your Last Three Tweets

The final main attribute of your profile summary is the section containing your last three tweets. This won’t show your retweets, but @ replies do show up.

This is the hardest section of your profile summary to optimize. Your last three tweets might perfectly represent your presence on Twitter. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to stop tweeting. It’s best not to stress about this too much – just focus on good tweeting and it won’t be an issue.

Additional Profile Summary Details

There is a little more going on in your Twitter profile summary that I haven’t mentioned yet:

• Your name and @ handle. Use your real name if you want people to be able to find you. Not a lot to say here.
• Location. You should definitely include your location – it helps connect with people in your area. We don’t need your address, but a city would be nice.
• Website. Including a link to your website is excellent. If you’ve got two, put one in your bio (but don’t over-do it).
• #of tweets. I don’t believe people pay much attention to this number. Without the context of how long you’ve been on Twitter, it doesn’t really mean anything. As long as you have more than 100 tweets, we’ll know you’re not a spam bot.

Do It to It

This post isn’t just about optimizing your profile summary – it’s about understanding the first impression you give on Twitter. Whether it’s the details you can edit or the ones beyond your control, you should know what you look like when you walk out onto the Twitter field.

How do you make a good first impression on Twitter? Let us know in the comments. Oh, and retweet me if someone you love needs to read this post.

Are you making the right first impression on Twitter? portent.co/PmT7Sx

— jack martin (@jackthemartin) August 14, 2012

The post Are You Making the Right First Impression on Twitter? appeared first on Portent.

If Mitt Romney really is right and corporations are people, then they sure don’t act like it on Twitter. And that’s too bad. People don’t want to do business with a business; people want to do business with people. And that must be true, because it is cleverly worded.

Here are seven tips for improving your business’s Twitter.

Human beings for the win

No one likes being advertised to by a faceless corporation, so how about making your business’s Twitter a little more personable?

Starbucks uses their profile info to show that they’re not a business, but just a close group of friends who like to sell you coffee.

Even AXE, a brand I’m not too fond of, does a great job of personalizing their tweets by adding the signature of a member of their social team.

AXE Nation… Happy Record Store Day!!! Now get out there support your local shop! -DanwithAXE

— AXE (@AXE) April 21, 2012

Don’t overuse hashtags

I see a lot of businesses overusing hashtags. The strategy here is that by including relevant hashtags in a tweet, you can reach people searching for that hashtag. And that may be true, but I doubt those numbers are anything to tweet home about.

Use one, maybe two, hashtags in a tweet. Use more and you’ve got a pretty spammy tweet on your hands. Don’t scare away the followers who might have actually cared about your tweet in the first place.

Buy my new #ebook!!! It’s #super #free YOU KNOW IT awe.sm/5ofi3 Yeah yeah YEAH #hashtags — jack martin (@jackthemartin) June 21, 2012

Don’t over-promote your business

People don’t go to their favorite social media site to be advertised to. I think a lot of marketers and businesses forget that. You need to provide users with interesting and compelling content, and not all of it should be created by you.

What are you tweeting about? Ask yourself, “Why would someone follow this business on Twitter?” Don’t answer, “To keep up with our latest deals and promotions.” You can do better than that.

Establish your brand as an authority in your niche. Tweet the latest news from your industry, not just your business. Find a way to provide valuable information to your followers. Check out how Portent tweets out the news from our industry:

9 ways to measure your brand’s #social health via @jazspin awe.sm/cEQ5 And why you should care about each one — Portent, Inc.(@Portent) June 11, 2012

But what is the golden ratio for Twitter promotion? It depends on your industry, but you should try to balance a handful of promotional tweets with many handfuls of useful tweets that don’t directly advertise your products and services.

Don’t use autorespond messages

“Thanks for following! Please check out my articles at www.mystupidwebsite.com.”

Your followers don’t want that direct message. It’s not a kind gesture to a new follower; it’s you telling them they are just another statistic on your social media reports.

When I see an autorespond message in my direct message inbox, I brainstorm at least a dozen ways to track down and kill that tweeter. Okay, that’s not quite true, but it does send me and many other users straight to the unfollow button.

Update: Just got this awful autorespond message and I lashed out unexpectedly:

Reply to your fans

Reach out to a new audience, but also just make sure you don’t not respond to the audience you’ve got. Frequently monitor your @ mentions, and consider using a third party tool like Hootsuite to keep track of your brand keywords.

Don’t tweet too much

How often does the average brand or business tweet? The number may surprise you.
I used How often do you Tweet to analyze 50 of the top brands on Twitter. Those brands averaged over 37 tweets per day. Wow!

But that statistic is misleading. Many of those tweets were @ replies to followers (which you should be doing!), and your followers won’t see your @ replies to other followers (unless they follow them too).

There is a balance to be found here. Don’t just fire off a dozen tweets in five minutes. Tweet quality is more important than tweet quantity here. If your business has 15 great things to tweet about today, then that’s the right number. If you only have three interesting things to tweet about, then tweet three times. Just don’t make your followers sift through 15 tweets to find the three good ones. They won’t.

Be credible and trustworthy

A study by Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University analyzed the factors that affect the credibility of a tweet. Five factors stood out as having the largest negative impact on a tweet’s credibility:

• Tweet has non-standard grammar/punctuation.
• Twitter user has the default avatar/image (the egg).
• Twitter user has a cartoon avatar/image.
• The number of people the Twitter user is following far exceeds the number of people that follow them.
• Twitter user has a logo avatar/image (this is what we’re working against here).

Online readers are becoming more and more skeptical every day, so know that you’ll need to earn their trust with a quality Twitter feed.

Have you noticed any other things businesses do on Twitter that send you scrambling for the unfollow button?

Oh, and play your role as a child of knowledge by retweeting this article out for present generations to learn from.

How to Tweet Like You’re Not a Business portent.co/MV42Qk A guide for businesses.

— jack martin (@jackthemartin) June 26, 2012

The post How to Tweet Like You’re Not a Business appeared first on Portent.

Slim Shady doesn’t even follow his biggest fan: Stan.

I know, it came as a shock to me and my 300 followers as well. But Twitter is a conversation, and whether you’re a person or a person representing a brand, you can’t converse with anyone who doesn’t know you exist.

Thankfully, that’s where InboxQ comes in. I was introduced to this great tool last month through Ian’s seminar, Social Media Means Business, and I’ve been using it ever since. InboxQ lets you set-up a campaign of keywords, and then pulls in questions from Twitter that contain those keywords. After you’ve found people asking questions on Twitter that you have the answers to, you can start a conversation with your new potential audience.

Download and Installation

• Chrome, Firefox, Rockmelt: I prefer using the InboxQ app in Rockmelt, and checking for questions a few times throughout the day. Just download it from the InboxQ website.
• Hootsuite, Seesmic: I’ve never used it with Seesmic, but Hootsuite install is easy. Just go to the App Directory and choose InboxQ. Then make it a tab.
• iPhone: Find it in the App Store. Of course, this is a great option when you’re on the go – 15 minutes on the bus means you could answer a handful of questions (you’re never going to 3-star level 4-14 of Angry Birds anyway).

3 Smart Uses for InboxQ

• Brand management: InboxQ acts as another resource for brands to keep track of what people are saying about them. If you’re tweeting on behalf of a brand, be sure to add your brand’s name as a keyword. Just imagine how easy it would be for Starbucks to respond to potential customers like these:

• Spreading influence: It doesn’t matter if you have 25 followers or 25,000 followers – brands don’t have to wait for the customer, you can bring your brand directly to the customer. Marketers can use InboxQ to spread their influence about the topics in which they’re considered experts. For Portent, that’s meant searching for PPC, SEO and social media questions.

Trying to decide on a social media management tool. Any suggestions?

— Cheap Students (@cheapstudents) May 18, 2012

@Portent Thanks for the advice. Just checked out your site. I might be signing up for your SEO E-mail series!

— Cheap Students (@cheapstudents) May 18, 2012

@Portent Thanks for recommending us to @cheapstudents! Let us know if we can help with anything.

— Sprout Social (@SproutSocial) May 18, 2012

• Increasing your personal engagement (and raising your Klout score): I’ve tested using InboxQ with my personal Twitter account and have had some encouraging results. Search for questions regarding topics you’re interested in, or even put in your city’s name. Some of the best interactions I’ve had have come from answering questions about Seattle.

Exploring downtown #Seattle part 2 starts now. I’ve got the art museum on my agenda. What else should be, west coasters?

— Meg Wagner (@meg_wagner) May 19, 2012

@Bryden13 thanks for the tips! I did the space needle on round one of exploring last week, but I’m Market bound today!

— Meg Wagner (@meg_wagner) May 19, 2012

The InboxQ Quality Filter: A ‘Friends’-Inspired Warning*

InboxQ’s quality filter is far from perfect. You’ll find yourself wading through tweets, looking for actual questions to answer. Eventually, this process will become second-nature, and you’ll be weeding out tweets without reading them fully. At first though, it’s not so easy, which is why I’ve put together this short guide about tweets to ignore (the example tweets were actually taken from an InboxQ search).

*You might be wondering why I’m using the decade-old sitcom “Friends” to do this. I’ll be honest: I bought the complete series boxset last year, and I’m currently on episode 171 172. That’s a lot of “Friends.” Probably too much. But I better put this important knowledge to good use just in case I ever undergo a brain transplant like Dr. Drake Ramoray.

Do you know what sucks? The Facebook app. That’s what sucks.

— Blaze Pollard (@blazepollards) June 10, 2012

Ross tweets: Look out for these whiny tweets. They don’t want answers – they’re just using Twitter as a space to complain in 140 characters or less.

I’m in a habit of deleting people off facebook for any reason. The latest? Self shot mirror instagram photos. Just no!

— Liam Keyworth (@Liam_K_) June 12, 2012

Monica tweets: Like her brother Ross, these tweets can be a bit whiny. But they also scream “control freak.” Eventually, your eyes will be trained to skip pass them.

did facebook just get fatter or is it just me?..

— Raisa Khan (@raisakhann) June 12, 2012

Joey tweets: Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. They’ll often be nonsensical, or they’ll have hearts surrounding the tweet. Ignore.

Really. I’ve become the stalker that i am now because of facebook, twitter and tumblr. At least it’s all legal and stuff. Or is it? Hahaha

— Jia Domingo ღ (@akosijiaaa) June 10, 2012

Phoebe tweets: Have you ever said to yourself, “Why did someone tweet that?” These ones just make you scratch your head.

Someone on facebook was asking “If you were in The Hunger Games, what would you want your sponsor to send to you?” I said bombs. #duh

— The Mike (@TheMike31) June 12, 2012

Chandler tweets: Dripping with sarcasm, and the person is probably answering their own question.

Why does Facebook even give me the option to ‘like’ my own status? Of course I like my status. I’m hilarious.

— merp. (@EllenMcNamara_) June 12, 2012

Rachel tweets: Self-obsessed. These people would rather have a conversation with themselves than reply to you.

One Last Helpful Tip

If you’ve got the quality filter to its highest setting and you’re still getting a high level of unwanted tweets, try using negative keywords. When you enter a negative keyword, any tweets with that keyword won’t be shown. This can be effective, say, if you’re searching for social media questions but you don’t want Facebook questions.  Just enter “Facebook” as a negative keyword.

Have you had success with InboxQ or are you excited to try it? Have you found any similar tools to help in your quest to spread your influence on Twitter? Let me know in the comments.

The post InboxQ: Spread Your Twitter Authority Like Butter appeared first on Portent.

I remember when I got my first Twitter follower. I was a bright-eyed web surfer with a bushy tail (since birth).

@getfree_ebooks3 followed me, and our relationship blossomed. She was beautiful. I would tell her about what I was eating for lunch and other important Twitter issues, and she would suggest nice pieces of malware for my computer to download.

I eventually discovered that @getfree_ebooks3 was a spam bot. It was heartbreaking. I realized the truth about Twitter.

At that moment, I realized that the best way to create quality relationships on Twitter is to seek out the people in your target audience and engage with them.

At first, I could manage this pretty easily. But once I was following over 150 people (often the magic number for our brains), it was too difficult to manage them all just with Twitter.

Why did it become so difficult so fast?

When you follow someone on Twitter, you are subscribing to their insight and opinions. So here you are, following hundreds or thousands of people because they might say something that’s interesting to you. But unless they tweet at you, retweet you, or happen to tweet moments before you check Twitter, you will miss out on everything they have to say.

And once you’re following +150 people, it’s pretty easy to miss out on everything.

But there is another way!

Enter Hootsuite

You may be familiar with the social media management tool Hootsuite. A free account with Hootsuite lets you monitor your Twitter, Facebook, and other feeds (called streams), as well as schedule updates for your social accounts. I’m sure the premium version does some more neat stuff.

Hootsuite is real swell.

Let’s focus on Hootsuite’s Twitter services. The average Hootsuite user may have a basic tab setup for their Twitter account. It probably looks similar to this:

From the left, you’ve got your home feed (the tweets and retweets of everyone you follow), @ mentions, and something else (I’m keeping track of who is retweeting me here, but this might also be your direct message inbox or favorites).

Not too bad. But there’s another way yet!

Enter Twitter Lists

A seasoned Twitter pro might have a good chuckle at the mention of Twitter lists. Twitter introduced lists in 2009 as a way to segment the people you follow into more specific groups.

You can easily add someone to a list by clicking their name to bring up a profile box, then selecting the “Add or remove from lists” option.

But, I would wager that less than 1% of Twitter users utilize lists.

And I don’t blame people for not using Twitter lists; Twitter lists suck. From the homepage (which already has your regular feed), it takes three clicks just to get to a list. Why would I ever do that when my home feed is right in front of me?

The concept of segmenting all these people we follow is great, though. Twitter just doesn’t let you use lists efficiently. But Hootsuite does.

Lists in Hootsuite

My Hootsuite tabs are made up of a combination of the basic Hootsuite stream functions shown above, and Twitter lists. Adding a list as a Hootsuite stream is easy. Just click Add Stream and select the list you want to monitor.

So What Type of Lists Should I Make?

That depends on what you use Twitter for. Make lists that group types of people that you want to interact with. Here are some lists you might make:

• Real life friends
• Professionals in your industry
• News or daily deals sources
• The blogs you follow
• Your favorite actors or comedians

Add those lists to your Hootsuite tab and you can create the ideal dashboard for monitoring the Twitter users you want to engage with the most. Follow Ian Lurie’s content curation schedule to start engaging with your segmented audiences efficiently.

My Twitter Dashboard in Hootsuite

Each Hootsuite tab will comfortably hold between 3-6 streams. You can have up to eight streams in a tab if you like horizontal scrolling. I use six streams, organized between two tabs. I call the tabs:

The Me Feed

The Me Feed tab is for me (I’m really good at naming things). I monitor:

• My @ mentions. No-brainer, right? If someone tweets at me, I see it. If they’re not a spam bot, I reply (and sometimes when they are a spam bot).
• My real life friends. Real Life > Online Life. Separating my real life friends has been a great way to follow the more @-heavy conversations between my closest friends.
• The people I regularly interact with. These are people I’ve already made a connection with. I know I want to see what these people are tweeting about, but other than Google+, I probably haven’t “hung out” with them before.

The Focused Feed

The Focused Feed tab is for more specific engagement. I monitor:

• Industry professionals. Instead of adding the top 20 internet marketing blogs to my Google Reader, I follow big and small time internet marketers and see what SEO cream rises to the top. When someone tweets out an article I like, I tweet back at them. What an easy way to start a conversation.
• Future friends. When I follow someone new, they often end up in this list. These are people that I think are interesting, but haven’t interacted with me yet. I keep an eye on these tweets, and tweet back if I have something to add. Once I build a relationship, I move them into the Me Feed.
• Favorite tweets. I favorite a tweet if I want to follow the link or reply to it later. I also use favorites to save the best tweets of the week so I have ammo for Follow Friday.

What’s missing from my feed?

• My home feed. I’ve segmented the followers I want to interact with the most, so I rarely need the home feed. If I did, I could just go to old-fashioned twitter.com, or check my phone.
• Hootsuite keyword/query monitoring. Hootsuite allows you to add streams that monitor specific keywords in tweets. This is a great feature, and you should use it. For this post however, we’re focusing on ways to engage the people you already follow.

What’s the Low Fat Version?

You don’t want to go through all that trouble? Well, I can’t make you. I’m not your mom. And I realize that.

If I was going to give you one tip to increase your engagement on Twitter, I would say make a list. Make one list. And fill it with the 25 to 50 people that you want to engage with the most. Add the list to your Hootsuite dashboard.

Watch that list like a hawk, or like another creature good at watching things. If those tweeters ask a question, answer it. If they tweet a link, check it out and let them know what you think. Make them your friends and allies.

Now you’re building a real Twitter following, not just making complex Canadian wedding plans with a spam bot. In related news: I’m single again, ladies!

The post How to Use Hootsuite and Twitter Lists to Engage Your Audience appeared first on Portent.

The next time you feel the tingle to tweet your profound opinion, here are some examples of why you should think of the long-term implications of writing your short sentence.

10. Cairo in a Tizzy for Kenneth Cole

While Kenneth Cole’s new collection wasn’t quite as exciting as the Egyptian riots, Kenny C used the opportunity to springboard him and his brand into a PR nightmare. Protestors even attached the tweet-gaff onto the window of the downtown New York store.

Re Egypt tweet: we weren’t intending to make light of a serious situation. We understand the sensitivity of this historic moment -KC

— Kenneth Cole (@KennethCole) February 3, 2011

9. The Gleek Springs a Leak

After overhearing who will be crowned prom king and queen on an upcoming episode of Glee, actress (and recurring extra on Glee) Nicole Crowther decided to leak the news early on her Twitter feed.

Glee writer, producer and creator Brad Falchuck was pissed. Instead of ignoring the leak, which would have just been a blip on the social media radar, the leader of the Gleeks replied to Crowther’s message (validating her rumor and ruining her career) with this tweet:

@nicolecrowther hope you’re qualified to do something besides work in entertainment.

— BradFalchuk (@BFalchuk) April 17, 2011

Crowther’s Twitter account says she still works in “the biz,” but fears the acting career she’s always dreamed of “will never become a reality.”

8. Sarah Palin “Refudiates”

To reeducate you on the refudiate debate, Palin’s original tweet was “Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate.” One of her aids Palin pulled the tweet down later, tweeting:

“Refudiate,” “misunderestimate,” “wee-wee’d up.” English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!

— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) July 18, 2010

What’s the problem with making up new words? Normally, something like this isn’t that damning for the typical tweeter, but when one of your party’s platforms is to demand that immigrants speak English, goofing up the language you’re forcing people to speak doesn’t go over well with the press.

7. Motor City Twitter Meltdown

The world is full of bad drivers. Scott Bartosiewicz wanted to remind us of this mundane fact by ranting on his personal Twitter account. One problem: he was still signed into the @ChryslerAutos corporate account.

Image via Stance is Everything

@ChryslerAutos followed up this tweet with:

Image via Huffington Post

Their resolution? Fire Bartosiewicz and refuse to renew their social media contract (reportedly worth over $100,000).

6. Mind Like a Scientist, Arm Like a Damn Rocket

If there’s one thing we should all know, don’t drink and tweet… especially if you’re racist. Former baseball pitcher and former radio producer Mike Bacsik is our shining example. After a few drinks, Bacsik gave us his best Kenny Powers impression during a Mavericks-Spurs game with this tweet:

Image Via SBNation

Bacsik was fired from his radio station the following Tuesday.

5. Bing Binged It Bad When Supporting Japan

The Microsoft search engine posted this tweet shortly after the Japanese earthquake in March, 2011:

Image via Huffington Post

What started as an effort to help Japan quickly mutated into a PR meltdown. It turns out that the tweeting public is pretty savvy, so when you try to seize a natural disaster as a marketing opportunity, people will see right through it. Once the hashtag #F–kYouBing started trending, Bing knew it was time to send out an apology: “We apologize the tweet was negatively perceived. Intent was to provide an easy way for people to help Japan. We have donated $100K.”

4. Mocking the Attack on Lara Logan

Nir Rosen was a journalist and fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security… that was until he tweeted, “Lara Logan had to outdo Anderson. Where was her buddy McCrystal.” When reporter Lara Logan was sexually assaulted during the riots in Cairo, Rosen was critical of Logan’s reporting, insisting that she was trying to top CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s coverage of the event by getting too close to the action. Rosen refers to Logan’s brutal attack as almost an “I told ya so” moment, implying that she shouldn’t receive our sympathy because she was a “major warmonger.”

Rosen later tweeted, “it would have been funny if it happened to Anderson too,” which refers to the knee-slapping hilarity that would have ensued if we found out Anderson Cooper had also been sexually assaulted during the riots. Rosen apologized and resigned from his fellowship within 24 hours. While he deleted most of his tweets, this still remains in his feed:

on the job you get used to making jokes about our own death, other people’s deaths, horrors, you forget that you sound like a dick at home

— nir rosen (@nirrosen) February 16, 2011

3. Gilbert Gottfried Gets Aflacked

When Aflac signed Gilbert Gottfried to be their spokesperson, they should have known what they were getting into. Remember, this is the same guy who joked, “I have to leave early tonight, I have to fly out to L.A. I couldn’t get a direct flight, I have to make a stop at the Empire State Building.” He said this three weeks after 9/11.

Gottfried has a twisted sense of humor sometimes, so it wasn’t out of character for him to tweet jokes like:

Image via BuzzFeed

Surprised or not, Aflac wasn’t delighted. It turns out that Aflac is the top foreign insurance company in Japan and earns 75% of its revenue from that market. Gottfried might have been dumb about his tweets, but Aflac probably shouldn’t have hired the comedian in the first place.

2. Chris Brown’s Twitter Trend

We all know Chris Brown isn’t the most eloquent Twitterer. He’s even told his fans to F-off a time or two. But when people started reacting to Brown’s 2012 Grammy appearance, society hit a new low. Without getting into too much detail about Chris Brown’s relationship with Rihanna (or my opinion on domestic violence), here are some of the most disturbing tweets from Chris Brown’s fans:

Image via BuzzFeed

1. Weiner’s Weiner

Winner of the Trojan’s boner of the year award for dumbest tweet, Anthony Weiner’s erect boxer picture taught us all why a Twitter direct message still isn’t private.

Famous enough for a Wikipedia page, the Anthony Weiner Sexting Scandal started when Weiner sent a picture of his underoos to a 21-year-old female college student in Seattle, WA. The picture and screenshots of the original message were sent to conservative blogger and published the next day.

Weiner claimed his Twitter account was hacked:

Image via BuzzFeed

As it turns out, sending a picture of his privates wasn’t a one-time thing on Anthony Weiner’s bucket list. He did it a lot. Weiner admitted to the whole ruse when a different shirtless picture surfaced. Two weeks later, he resigned from his seat in Congress.

Sorry for all the unwanted attention on #WeinerYes follows.I didn’t mean to make you famous.#CollateralDamage

— Anthony Weiner (@RepWeiner) June 1, 2011

Takeaways

These people failed for a variety of reasons. Some tried to take advantage of a current event with an ill-timed joke. Others didn’t own up for their mistakes and paid dearly for it.

Ultimately, what all ten of these tweeters share in common is their lack of foresight. Don’t ever forget that the Library of Congress takes record of every tweet. Ever. The next time you tweet just another short sentence, keep in mind the whole world can see it and they might just retweet it.

The post The 10 Dumbest Tweets of All Time & the Idiots Who Wrote Them appeared first on Portent.