I Sense A Trend…Twitter Trends….The Good And Bad….
As you may be aware I have created an online community on Twitter under the hashtag #bealeader. Each week I host a Twitterchat every Thursday night at 7pmET – and if I can just add an outstanding group of leaders we have each week.
As has been the case in our last few chats, we “trend” on Twitter. What does that mean? Trends are determined by an algorithm and tailored based on who you follow and your location. This algorithm identifies topics that are immediately popular, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis, to help you discover the hottest emerging topics of discussion on Twitter. You may notice that some Trends have pound – # (hashtag) and is included specifically in Tweets to mark them as relating to a topic, so that people can follow the conversation in search.
So “trending” is a good thing – and yet…bad…because of the open design of #hashtags anyone and everyone can jump on the trend.
Hence…this tweet. I’m not posting the graphic of the tweet due to the nature of the language, but if you click on the hyperlink, you can see what happened. I received after our #bealeader chat last night. Normally, I would just let this roll of my back like a duck but this one was a bit different. The nature of the tweet could not be ignored as it was in response to me posting up our #bealeader community information. Mr. BBQ man is the culprit and it was re-tweeted through their mirror account BigDaDDyHoTsDog – normally when I see a Twitter account set up in this manner I pay no attention – since it appears they are lacking basic knowledge about how to set up an account in the first place. I did ask for a comment from Mr.BBQ man but shockingly there was no response….. it highlights a point about trending – you have to take the good with the bad and clearly there are so many who feel they can write such profane and demeaning tweets – yet do not realize that this type of behavior reflects on their company.
So I have to ask – is trending on Twitter a great response or it is just bad business? We should be grateful to trend, yet, it appears with many hashtags not just mine that this just opens the door to those who lack good self control of their emotions and feel they can just tweet out profanity. I have spent a good part of my time after #bealeader chats deleting out trash and profane tweets….that’s not good business. And I’m not alone here – several folks who host communities and chats on Twitter have been subjected to this type of behavior and profanity in their hashtags – it appears to be some what…pardon the pun….a trend.
On the flip side, I did receive an email from a wonderful person who only noticed #bealeader because of the trend – and that’s a great response and what you want to happen from your engagement on Twitter. If we hadn’t trended would she have seen our stream – which normally has a high response rate thanks to our #bealeader community members? Maybe, maybe not…but the trend caught her attention.
So…what say you? Do you think trending on Twitter is a blessing or a curse?
Jen – I definitely think that trending falls on the blessing side of the spectrum! The more people that can be exposed and introduced to your powerful and inspiring chat on leadership the better! I’m sad that there are people that not only treat others like “that” on Twitter, but also in life. You have built a great community of people that deeply care about leadership.
Thanks, Alli. I agree – the more people that can exposed to the #bealeader community and its message, member the better! It is a sad commentary that a company would RT such profane statements, however, as I said, you have to take the good with the bad on Twitter and understand the public nature of the platform. I think the way combat this negativity is to ensure the #bealeader community is strong and keep the message going so that when we trend, we can drown out the negative messages that appear and perhaps we can change a few minds and find new leaders in the process. You inspire me, Alli. Thank you so much!
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Admittedly, I’ve been on the…more profane side a time or two. My excuse is going on a rampage against Chris Brown and the so-called #TeamBreezy after they showed their rears.
That said, it would seen to me that the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages. In fact, I would think that people such as this Mr.BBQ present an opportunity to show the class I’d assume you are capable of; that is, showing how much better you are by exploiting their lacking natures. It’s something like Hapkido and using an “enemy’s” own force against him….
Or…I may be too battle-minded.
Should there be an excuse to use profanity with others? I think civility in all communication on the internet should be the norm. As I said in this post, I did contact Mr.BBQ and received no response to my question as to why this company twitter handle would promote such personal attacks. The purpose of highlighting his tweet was to bring to light that outrageous and classless behavior that happens when some hashtags trend on Twitter. Twitter is a communication platform, not a platform for those to display bad behavior.
There is no legitmate excuse. For my actions, I was wrong (though I felt justified). Same with this…gentleman… It’s not something that reflects well on a company and is not the way Twitter should be used (especially in business, as you’ve pointed out). Perhaps it’s my habit of being confrontational that makes me to see the benefit in trolls. I agree with you on all points.
Thanks, Sahm. I think we all need to step back and look at our actions online – how do we combat those with bad behavior and do so with class – in some cases nothing said at all speaks volumes when dealing with “Trolls” it is only feeding the beast so to speak.
Hi Jen! I agree that trending can be both a blessing and a curse but the former far outweighs the latter. Fortunately, the many of us who know you also know better. You have created an exciting community of amazing leaders from all walks of life. Your reputation and that of the community as a whole far exceed any attempts to undermine it.
Another form of “tweetabuse” is tweet jacking. This occurs when someone RT’s one of your tweets that contains a link but they change the link to one of their own. This is especially difficult to catch when you’re using a link shortener like bit.ly and one of the reasons I try to avoid using them if possible. It’s happened to me before and I also wrote a more in-depth post on my blog.
Lastly, it is possible for some to use “look alike” account names where certain letters appear to be the same on the screen but are actually quite different. For example, consider “likeable” vs “IikeabIe”. The first case uses the lower case “L” whereas the second case uses a capital “i”.
It’s sad to see that some “people” go through great strides to bring a good thing down, fortunately the cream rises to the top.
Cheers!
Thanks, Redge. The former is better – and it does spread your positive message. To combat the negative – the community must make its voice higher than the negative. I’ve seen the tweetabuse first hand as well, and reported those who have taken advantage of others tweets as well as my own. There is always those who will drag down those who are making a positive impact that is unfortunate. bit.ly seems to have issues, I use the link shortener with hootsuite and not bit.ly for this reason. Also, I never open links from those whom I do not know. Twitter bears some responsibility in this as well – they need to be better about accounts that appear to be spammers and cleaning out those from their system. Unfortunately, they do not seem to get rid of those accounts as quickly. Their reporting function only appears to be for appearances, you can report but that seems do nothing.
My best advice, report and block. Keep an eye on your own stream for tweetabuse. And as for the #bealeader community and others – raise the bar – keep the stream positive – if you see folks who taking advantage of the hashtag – raise positive messages and perhaps the bots and trolls will get the message they are not welcome.