I had a couple uncomfortable and head scratching experiences this week with people and social media. Both of these experiences involved people who are supposed to know what social media is all about.
The first encounter was with a fellow communications person. This person worked for a local organization and contacted me regarding some interactions I had online. They asked me if I could please delete one of my tweets. It was a tweet that was made two days prior. I explained to them that deleting the tweet would do little to no good as it was far down on my profile and that is the only place it would be deleted. She said she understood, but could I please delete it anyway, thanks!
Now, just to clarify a couple things. The tweet was not offensive and in fact, it was not even incorrect. I was trying to correct some misinformation that someone else had tweeted. But it wasn’t worded the way she thought it should be. This tells me a couple things:
I asked around a bit and discovered, much to my surprise, that I wasn’t the first one who had been asked by a communications person to delete tweets. The problem is, people who are involved with twitter know that asking someone to delete is equivalent to saying “shut up!” – it is considered a bit of an insult.
The second incident was much more disturbing. It happened while I was covering the Strathcona County Council meeting.
As I always do, I sat in the media section with the local media. I was sitting in one of three seats available to media. The only time I have covered a council meeting and not sat there was when the newspaper was training an intern and needed extra seats. That time, without anything needing to be said, I sat down in the public section to tweet.
This meeting was like many others and after chatting with the reporter and exchanging jibes about his choice in hockey teams, the Council meeting started.
I began tweeting the highlights of the meeting, including the motions before Council and who voted for and against them. I also tweeted my observance that the Mayor and one of her Councillors always voted the same way.
It is all speculation on my part that what happened next is connected to what I was tweeting, but I have no other explanation that makes sense to me.
A few minutes later a break was called. I heard that a couple of the councillors had been following my tweets on their smartphones during the meeting (we can deal with that in another post!) and chuckling about my commentary.
The Mayor came up to the media area and straight towards me. She asked me if I was media. I told her yes, social media. She said no, was I paid by a media outlet to cover the Council meeting. When I said no, she said that I needed to move out of the media area.
I explained to her that by moving out of the media area I would have no table to type on and would have to use my lap. That’s ok, she said, but we can’t have the public sitting here.
I collected my stuff and started to move. Before I moved I asked the reporter if he had a problem with my being there. He responded that no, he definitely didn’t, in fact he liked the company.
Now, please understand, there are no crushing crowds at these meetings and there are extra seats at the media table. There was absolutely no reason why I should have been kicked out of that area. That leaves me with only one answer to the question of why I was asked to leave. The Mayor didn’t like what I was tweeting. She decided to try and control the message, or at the very least, make it uncomfortable for the message to get out (ever tried to juggle an iPad, a Bluetooth keyboard, an iPhone and papers while sitting on a folding chair?)
The thing that is baffling to me is that this is the Mayor of a municipality that just spent several months coming up with a social media policy. A municipality that just opened multiple facebook pages, a twitter account, flickr stream etc. This is also the Mayor who used twitter to campaign and broadcast her election blog. This is a woman who should know better.
How does a municipality or any organization for that matter, stand a chance in the world of social media when the people who should know better…don’t? It is becoming apparent that having someone read a social media policy or showing them how to use the tools is not enough. Many people, including some of those who are on various social media sites, don’t get it.
Yes, it is a communication tool. But it is not just a tool, it is a completely different way of thinking. This is where things start to fall apart. It is easy to teach someone how to use a new tool, it is a lot harder to teach them a new way of thinking.
When I received my formal communications training about eleven years ago, we were taught all about controlling the message and developing key messages. Then social media came along and threw all of that out on its ear. It brought to light the fact that not only can we not control the message, but we never could. It was an illusion of control. Social media hasn’t taken control away from anyone, it has shown us we never had it.
Unfortunately, some people and some organizations are still grasping frantically, trying to grab hold of that illusion. Until they change their approach and begin to think about engaging people, interacting and exchanging thoughts and ideas, until they begin to realize that information, messaging and facts don’t belong to them, they will continue to run around trying to grab hold of any sliver of control they can find.
Am I out to lunch? Can the message be controlled? Am I a Polly-Anna to think organizations don’t need to have control if they are transparent, forthcoming and engaging in their dealings?
