Sued for a tweet & The Power of the RT on Twitter

Who knew anything about Amanda Bonnen and her alleged mold problem, or anything about Horizon Group Management and their apartments. Now, a local complaint made via a tweet has turned into a national issue – with lessons for both Tweeple and companies targeted by tweets.

Ms. B tweeted in May about mold in her Chicago apartment, and Horizon Group Management answered with a $50,000 defamation lawsuit. News of the lawsuit went viral on the Internet after a Chicago blogger caught wind of the complaint. Horizon, denied there was mold, said it was suing because that one tweet could be heard around the world. Ms. B had only 17 people following her on Twitter- BUT she had a public account that could be viewed by anyone searching for her comments and not counting the RT from her followers and their followers and the public searches etc….. The Power of the RT.

Is there a social media lesson here? Probably! Tweeple should be careful about what they tweet. Companies should also be careful how they respond to a negative tweet – handling it badly could result in a public relations nightmare. However, many many companies have turned customer complaints into pure gold! By monitoring Twitter and other Social Media channels, savvy organizations seek out legitimate complaints from displeased customers and proactively provide resolution.

Are we underestimating Twitter’s reach. Twitter’s 140 characters is just enough to say something powerful for good or ……

With that said: @ChrisBrogan blogged “A Brief and Informal Twitter Etiquette Guide”
“I love Twitter. I think the service is a wonderful tool that permits a whole new way of communicating. The thing is, it’s also a place where newcomers might often make some mistakes in their choices that will likely be taken in a negative manner, and will likely result in an unfollow or a block from other Twitter users.”

Here is a Chris’ take.
* It’s okay to follow people you don’t know on Twitter. They can choose whether or not to follow you back.
* It’s okay to unfollow people on Twitter. Unfollowing doesn’t automatically mean “I don’t like you.” There are many other reasons.
* It’s okay to @reply someone a question or comment vs direct message, especially if it’s an idea where others might weigh in or add a perspective.
* It’s better to direct message someone if you’re making 1:1 plans or having a very focused, personal conversation.
* It’s not polite to direct message people you don’t know well with your automated quiz results or similar. It’s great that YOU like those quizzed, but others see it as spam.
* Some people are not a fan of auto reply messages that are sent in direct messages when someone follows you on Twitter. They (and by “they,” I also mean “I”) consider these robot behavior.
* Promoting others and talking with others is a great way to show your participation to the community.
* Only blurting out your information and links doesn’t usually come off as friendly or community-minded.
* You don’t have to read every tweet.
* You don’t have to respond to every @mention.
* You aren’t obligated to reply to every direct message.
* However, the more you can respond, the more people tend to stay with you and build relationships.
* When retweeting other people’s works, it’s okay to truncate a bit to be able to retweet. Please preserve the link and also the original person’s Twitter name. (ex: RT @mackcollier “Twitter lives and dies on retweeting.”)
* When retweeting someone else’s retweet, it’s sometimes okay to drop the secondary source and just retweet the original poster of the information. (example showing a change to a retweet): “RT @chrisbrogan RT @mackcollier Twitter lives and dies on retweeting” turns into “RT @mackcollier Twitter lives and dies on retweeting.” (make sense? agree?)
* Want to avoid the above problem? Make your retweets more retweetable.
* It’s Ok to have multiple twitter identities (from Jack Bresler)
* It’s OK to disregard robots. (from Jack Bresler)
* If you’re running a customer service Twitter account, it’s polite to follow back the people following you. (from Ted Coine).
* Unless you have the author’s consent, it also may be unwise to pull from another feed stream, like mybloglog, and place the information into the twitter stream (from WWAHHMpreneur)
* Swearing/cursing might well be bad etiquette, and feels like swearing loudly in a public place. (from BizyBiz) . *Note: I sometimes swear. Sorry.
* Pitching your blog might not be the next best move directly after a follow. (inspired by cherylandonian)
* Don’t get hung up on the numbers, that’s not what matters. Its a case of who you know not how many you know. (from Justin Parks)