No ifs, ands, or bots
Just Another Day in Social Media. 😉
Elon Musk is (not surprisingly) trying to back out of the $44-billion Twitter deal, arguing that the company is offering misleading information about the number of spam accounts on the platform. Twitter has responded by digging in, with Twitter Chairman Brett Taylor tweeting that the company is "committed to closing the transaction" and "plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement." That's interesting and all, but honestly, does this mean we're still going to get an edit button or what?
Here are today's top stories:
Three social media lessons from the Rogers PR debacle
Twitter tests a co-authoring feature
Don't forget to submit your emoji ideas
And marking the anniversary of a milestone image
Read on ⬇️
Crisis Management 101
First of all, my heart goes out to the social media manager for the @RogersHelps Twitter account. Friday must have been rough. Being the messenger is never fun — especially when executives aren't making the best decisions. Aside from the lack of timely, pertinent information by Rogers (this would be a good case study for a PR program), there are some good social media lessons to take away from what happened. Let's break it down...
Turn Off Replies
Depending on the crisis, you may not want to encourage feedback. In this case, which was basically just users venting, replies aren't all that valuable to Rogers. So I would have recommended turning off replies. How? Twitter launched a conversation feature in 2020 that allows you to choose who can reply to a tweet. The three categories are: everyone, people you follow, and only people you mention. If you choose "only people you mention" — this effectively turns off the ability for just anyone to reply. And you can also edit this after you post a tweet (c'mon Rogers, give your social media manager a break!). You just have to click on the three dots beside the post, and you'll see an option to "Change who can reply."
Use Alt-Text
For some reason, Rogers chose to post images containing text — which screen readers can't read, making the posts not accessibility friendly. First of all, this is Twitter, where a tweet of pure text will do just fine, especially in an emergency situation. But if Rogers felt like an image was necessary, they should have added alt-text, which is an accessibility best practice. Here's how to add a description: Click on the Tweet composer, add your photo, and click on "ALT." Tweets containing images with alt-text will appear with a badge that says "ALT" in the bottom left-hand corner of the image. When you click on it, an image description pops up. As for what to write in the alt-text (also known as descriptions), here are some best practices according to Twitter.
Check Pinned Posts
Being able to Pin posts — pushing certain content to the top of an account so it doesn't get missed — is a great feature that most social media platforms offer. But the thing is, it's very easy to forget what you've Pinned, especially if it's been a while since you've popped into the actual profile and are scheduling posts from a third-party tool. In the case of the @RogersHelps account, the Pinned tweet is from April 1, 2020, and says "Experiencing service interruptions? For the latest details and to see if you may be impacted, click here:" and links to a community forum. In any other time, this could be super helpful. But when half the country goes down, the tone is completely off.
Ultimately, it's a good idea to have a crisis communications plan for social media that includes best practices like these. And don't forget to include some much-deserved down time for your social media manager post-crisis. 💕
SOCIAL SNACK
Don't Tweet Alone
Twitter is testing a new co-authoring featured called CoTweet, which is "a co-authored Tweet that’s posted simultaneously to both authors' profiles and their followers’ timelines," according to Twitter's Help Center. The feature is available to select accounts in the U.S., Canada and Korea. If it's available on your account, the feature will appear in the tweet composer as a pop-up window that invites you to "tweet together with CoTweets," according to The Verge. You can invite a maximum of one other Twitter user to tweet with you, and you can send invites to people who follow you and that have public accounts. But Twitter is very clear this is just an experiment. So if you try it out and they end the experiment, the co-tweets will disappear. Learn more about CoTweets.
On a related side note: It feels like Twitter is trying to market itself as a platform for writers. It recently announced it is testing a new feature called Notes, that would allow for long-form content. And in announcing this CoTweet test, Twitter refers to its users as "authors." Interesting...
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ICYMI
🔴 Instagram expands access to Reels templates, adds music recommendations for Reels clips [Social Media Today]
🔴 TikTok responds to concerns over safety of U.S. data [TikTok Blog]
🔴 Pinterest introduces API for shopping and product tagging for Pins [Pinterest Blog]
🔴 Meta will launch new way to log into VR headsets that doesn't require a Facebook account [Meta Blog]
🔴 YouTube marks the one-year anniversary of the global launch of YouTube Shorts [YouTube Blog]
EMOJI IDEAS WANTED
Have a great idea for an emoji? You have until July 31, 2022 to submit your application! Jennifer Daniel, the Unicode Consortium Emoji Subcommittee Chair, offers some tips to help ensure that your proposal is a success. Good luck! 💩
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY
First-Ever Instagram Photo
As Instagram actively tries to put its photo past behind it, the anniversary of the first-ever Instagram post is nearing. On July 16, 2010, cofounder Kevin Systrom posted a photo of a dog to the app (which was called Codename at the time). According to TIME, the photo was taken at this taco stand, and the foot in the photo is Kevin's girlfriend.
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