You would have to live in a bubble to not know about the recent scandal with former Senator Anthony Weiner.  The past month has been an on-going explosion of his social media mistakes that for some reason he thought would be kept private as long as they were not sent from his personal account.

For a quick synopsis on Weiner’s case:  A lewd photograph was sent from his personal twitter account to a woman, not his wife.  After a preliminary denial, Weiner admitted that he lied about someone hacking into his account along with several other inappropriate encounters and relationships on social network sites like facebook and twitter.

Weiner is not the only one getting busted these days .  It seems that people have constant issues either with posting too much personal information or not being able to distinguish between personal and public or work life.  Examples range from Weiner, to several corporate employees, to a school teacher who got fired simply for posting photos of herself with drinks in hand on a trip abroad.

Here are two examples of people tweeting something personal on a work twitter account…

The first is when Kenneth Cole tweeted about their new collection on the same day that violence erupted in Egypt.  They tweeted “Millions are in uproar at #Cairo.  Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online.”  The tweet was later removed followed with several apologies.

The second example is when a worker for Chrysler’s outsourced media company tweeted on the Chrysler account (@Chrysler Autos) “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to F***ing drive.”  Apparently he meant this post for his personal account…too bad because he was fired shortly after.

What can we learn about these social media mistakes you may ask?

It seems simple but these tips can help anyone not to get caught in one of these increasingly common sticky situations…

Keep in mind…

• There really is no distinction between personal and business accounts
• Nothing is really private on the web
• Be aware of how you post and to whom you share your posts
• Protect your security
• Be careful of the content you post

http://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/the-weiner-principle-plus-5-more-social-media-meltdowns/

http://www.powerhomebiz.com/blog/2011/06/what-congressman-weiner-can-teach-small-businesses-about-social-media/

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/21586641/detail.html

http://www.learningfrombigboys.com/2011/06/learning-from-the-social-media-mistakes-of-rep-anthony-weiner.html

This week the retail giant Old Navy launches its first campaign specifically targeting men. While previous ads have featured men’s clothing through a broad family advertising appeal, they are trying a new tactic speaking directly to the 25- to 35-year-old male target.

Adage reports that the new campaign “pokes fun at men’s fashion with “Supar Tool,” an overly metrosexual man and “Corporado,” a corporate cowboy type.” The campaign introduces the characters through videos to be distributed on YouTube and Facebook, while print ads will run in publications including Maxim. Mobile elements will include a game, style-finder, video gallery, store locator and coupons. http://adage.com/article/news/navy-targets-campaign-men/228051/

You may also recall recently a predominantly female driven advertising push for weight-loss turned to males during NBA and NHL playoffs with Weight Watchers unveiling its male targeted campaign featuring the “Beer Cheat Sheet”. It’s commercials about weight loss come about as the company claims to have seen a dramatic spike in male interest.

And about a year ago we posted this blog http://www.brandiron.net/what-gets-your-attention on the Dockers ad targeting “real men” who “wear the pants.”

So why the big push for male targeted advertising? According to Adage “The timing for a men’s apparel push is right.” According to NPD, the men’s apparel market was up 3.3% in 2010, ahead of the overall apparel category, which was up 1.9%. And for the three months ending in February, the men’s apparel category was up 12% compared to the same period a year ago.

Tuesday night Twitter unveiled its new platform and features for both users and advertisers. The changes include ability to more easily post and view photos and videos as well as endlessly scroll through tweets without hitting the “more” button. Twitter announced deals with providers including YouTube, Flickr, Twitpic and Ustream – in an effort to make the experience of viewing media and sharing it more seamless.

The platform changes are within the Twitter “timeline” which now moves to the left. The new right “pane” will host the geography for an expanded look at whatever the user is clicking on- a detailed bio of a tweeter, a list of people who have re-tweeted the original tweet, or a photo/video linked to in the tweet. Users can now view content without moving off the timeline page.

For the advertisers on Twitter, it will give new visibility for sponsored tweets and trends, as well as content distributed by marketers.

If you think this sounds a lot like another familiar site, you’re not alone. Users alike are commenting that these Twitter changes have existed for years, on Facebook.

“@GallagherMeow i’ve been using the #newtwitter for years now. it’s called facebook. RT @kangollove”

Other users wonder if the “micro-blogging site” is focusing too much on interactivity and “the user experience” and if that change is going to change its central element.

The fact is the new changes are creating quite a Twitter buzz, the hash-tag #newtwitter has become the latest trending topic on the site and Twitter is looking for feedback from the small group of its users who are currently using the new platform.  If you haven’t seen the new Twitter yet, it’s time to get introduced http://twitter.com/newtwitter

A starter’s guide to understanding the buzz

In this brief guide, we will shed some light on the fastest-growing sector of social media.

I like to think that I’m an early adopter of technology – but truth be told – I like to see if things have the staying power to outlast the initial excitement. One of my criteria is: do they add enough value to my everyday life aside from just being new. I joined two of the front-running location-based social networks last month (Foursquare and Gowalla). With about 4 weeks under my belt, I wanted to share what I’ve learned both from a branding and marketing perspective and a consumer perspective.

First – a little background on location-based services. If you have a smart-phone, you have access to applications that use GPS in order to locate your device and provide location-based insight. The two main categories are:

Social Review Sites: These provide consumer reviews of the places nearby.
Yelp
WHERE
Geodelic
Tell me where

Social Check-in Site: These allow users to check-in, post pictures, status updates, etc.
Facebook – new feature
Foursquare
Gowalla
Blockchalk
BrightKite
Whrrl
MyTown

As a user – this is what you need to know

● Cool application for seeing where your friends are

A couple quick scenarios: Say, I’m at a concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre and I check-in. My friend, Mathew, is also at the concert and he sees that I checked-in. He calls me up and we meet-up after the concert to grab a beer at our favorite neighborhood bar.

I’m visiting a new city where my friend Sherri lives. I know she has good taste in vegetarian restaurants – so I check her profile to see what restaurants she’s checked into recently.

● Not as creepy as you might think. Sites like www.pleaserobme.com DO bring up some great points about over-sharing, but just keep your contacts to people you consider friends in real life.

● Get rewarded. Some retailers give special perks to loyal Foursquare, Gowalla, etc users. You are seen as their brand advocate.

As a marketer – here are the opportunities:

● Gain a loyal following of consumers who are “on the go”

● Influence their purchase when they are close to the register

● Offer up a special for all check-ins

● Offer an extra-special discount or freebie for the “Mayor”

● Learn more about your patrons (which locations and when the check-in)

Hope that helps as a brief introduction. As of June 2010, Foursquare reported that it had 1.6 million users. Plus, with Facebook’s new location-based tagging – I think it’s safe to say that this new sector of social media is here to stay (at least until the next big thing).

Consider location-based services as a part of your overall online presence. Brand Iron can help you leverage this new trend to drive revenue with a very specific (and growing) target audience.

It was the beginning of my sophomore year and the entire student body at USC had just gained access to the newbie social networking site. We learned that Facebook originated at Harvard, spread to the other Ivy’s and finally made the 3,000 miles journey west to Stanford, UCLA, and USC. My friends and I carefully crafted our retrospectively primitive profiles by adding birthdays, classes and other basic information. We agonized over the perfect profile picture because if you recall, users were only offered one pixilated representation.

Recently Facebook has undergone scrutiny regarding their privacy settings. It seems that people are suddenly feeling violated by the somewhat complicated privacy options. In fact, recently I have found myself defending Facebook’s honor whenever a disloyal user casually threatens to un-friend the online sphere. I stand by my conviction that social networking will only further infiltrate our society; there is no sense in fighting an inevitable. I’m sure there was much controversy over e-mail in its infantile stage; how impersonal! Can you imagine not using it now?

Honestly, having been a Facebook user for six harmonious years has afforded me the luxury of growing with the network. Mark Zuckerberg and his team have introduced countless changes and tweaks every year, which has made understanding what Facebook is today fairly seamless for long-time members, such as myself.

However, every one of those new additions was met with resistance from users, because people don’t like change. Some people might remember the controversy over the introduction of the news feed about three years ago. The modification took some adjusting, but right on its heels followed its cousin, Twitter.

But back to the privacy uproar of present. Yes, more information is available online; your information to be exact. However, skeptics tend to overlook that users are in full control of how much information is given. The only real requirements are your full name and email, which is a heck of a lot less incriminating than ordering a pair of shoes online.

While the sharing of personal information is admittedly a scary subject, it’s the future. I suppose I just don’t find our future to be bleak. The world wide transmission of information has led to so many wonderful reunions and created an easy way to connect. I personally keep in touch with literally hundreds of people I would have otherwise let fall to the wayside of my life. Aside from personal connections, I feel more connected to the world in general, and I don’t even mind being shown targeted advertisements every three seconds.

Bottom line: Next time you get frustrated/upset because you keep getting Farmville invitations or you just saw that your Ex is engaged…rethink pressing the delete button. The truth is you’ll only end up signing up again once you get bored/curious/over your Ex.

-Heather Sundell

A controversy ignited when a Swiss woman was recently fired for logging into her Facebook from home after she told her work she was too sick to look at a computer. This has reiterated the transparency of Facebook and other social networking sites, and the ways they connect your private life with your professional life on a daily basis.

Applying for jobs out of college, people always warned me about the possibility of future employers scouring my Facebook page to learn more about me. I immediately changed all my profile settings so that only my closest friends and family could view my pictures, information, and wall posts and made sure to delete any pictures that I felt would not best represent my professionalism.

As I found myself jumping into the workforce I continued to Facebook as normal, but was quickly confronted with a new dilemma–the decision of whether or not to accept friendship requests from my new colleagues.

Should I friend them and let them into my private life to view all my pictures, friends, wall posts and status updates? Should I friend them but block them from viewing pictures or other specific information, which they would undoubtedly know I had blocked them from seeing? Or should I ignore the request and go on as usual keeping my Facebook strictly part of my home life? And if I accepted one did I have to accept them all?

It was time to evaluate what Facebook meant to me and how I wanted to use it. When I asked some of my friends what they had done to deal with this I got every answer imaginable.

One friend said “no way, personal is personal and should be separate from the professional”. She actually seemed appalled that colleagues have even attempted to friend me at all.

Another friend said she chooses to keep her page private and sends a respectful message to those colleagues who friend her letting them know that she would like to keep her page private to close family and friends and hopes they understand. Others said they were friends with tons of work people and that they had enjoyed the perks of making connections with partners and colleagues in their field.

And then there are those in the middle who choose to accept requests from some of their colleagues with whom they have formed friendships, but said that it had made them more aware of what they were posting on their page. Almost all of my friends said they would never friend their boss.

It seems there is no right or wrong answer at all. It depends on how you would like to use your page and how much information you like to divulge.

As for me, I have decided to use my page as a way to communicate with friends, family and coworkers. I’ve made it a conglomeration of things in a way. I don’t discuss work on my page and I don’t post anything too private. I have removed my political and religious information, just to be judicious.

Everyone draws their own lines. I’ve made my rule of thumb: don’t post anything I wouldn’t want my mom to see.

Overall, I find it enjoyable to get to know coworkers a little better, see what their hobbies and interests are and share my interests with them as well. I have kept in contact and made some great connections with past coworkers and I look forward to continuing to expand my Facebook network of friends.

-Kaitlyn Anderson

Protecting your company – or more specifically your “brand reputation” – is the ultimate goal during a time of crisis.  The ability to withstand and endure a few “chinks in the armor” goes a long way to maintaining a strong, stable reputation.

Many companies, however, fail to develop a crisis communications plan thinking they can and will deal with it as necessary (in many cases they feel they are not susceptible to a business crisis).  As a result, the typical reaction due to unpreparedness is to hide in the corner and hope the problem goes away.

But enter social media.  With the explosion in recent years of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.,   information spreads more quickly than ever.  Last month’s Dominoes crisis where two North Carolina employees posted aYouTube video doing disgusting things to food should be considered Exhibit A.  Hiding in the corner won’t make it go away.

Here are some questions to ask to determine your preparedness in the event of a crisis:

1. Do we have a protocol in place outlining how we will react during the first few hours of a crisis?  Do we know where to funnel all information about the crisis?  Do we know who will serve as our company spokesperson?  How will we communicate the situation to our employees?
2. Are we properly prepared to deal with media?  Does our media spokesperson have a familiarity and comfort level in dealing with the press?  Who is monitoring the general media as well as the social media outlets so we can respond accordingly?
3. After gathering and reviewing the situation, how soon can we prepare ourselves with the facts to address our various publics (employees, customers, community, media, etc.)?
4. What is the best and most efficient method to communicate our message?  How do we respond to their questions and concerns?
5. During the initial days following the crisis, how can we best maintain and protect our reputation?  How can we show our willingness to be proactive in dealing with the situation?

Failing to address or “take control” of the situation can lead to more damage and deeper company wounds.  Taking hold of the situation, on the other hand, will have positive effects on your overall brand.

Written by Jim Miller