You are actually monitoring, right?

I ask on the back of an interesting story regarding Michigan-based PR firm Tanner Friedman and their current lawsuit regarding a fake Twitter account.

Back in January this year, an account was set up on Twitter that used the name @TannerFriedman. For anyone seeing the tweets from the account, you might expect them to be the latest company or client news from the PR firm.

Not so.

The account had nothing to do with Tanner Friedman. Instead, it was set up by someone who then went on to post a defamatory tweet as the account’s introduction to Twitter, and then subsequently posted negative tweets about the firm.

To keep things interesting, though, the account also took tweets from the Twitter accounts of actual Tanner Friedman employees to make it look more authentic.

Jump forward to March 27, when Tanner Friedman complained to Twitter about the fake account.

That’s more than two months later.

Despite the fake Twitter account posting about the company. Despite the fact that the tweets are said to be damaging and embarrassing to Tanner Friedman. Despite the company being active on Twitter through its employees.

So why so long? Weren’t Tanner Friedman monitoring their own brand as well as that of their clients?

There are numerous tools available to track what’s being said about you. Some are free, like Social Mention, Google Alerts, Filtrbox, BackType and, of course, Twitter.

There are also premium solutions available as well, like Radian6, Nielsen BuzzMetrics, Cision Social Media and Trackur to name just a few.

So it’s not as if the tools aren’t there.

Indeed, Tanner Friedman’s own blurb describes them as, “…an innovative and imaginative communication resource…” with a “…commitment to new technologies…”.

So what happened?

I sent an email to Tanner Friedman to ask their views on the current situation. Kudos to Don Tanner, who was pretty prompt at getting back to me. Here’s what Don had to say about the time lapse:

“We dealt with the problem once we became aware that there was a problem. The problematic tweets did not occur immediately. Once they did and we became aware of them, we acted immediately.”

With regards not having the Tanner Friedman account registered to the company to start with:

“We each had our own Twitter pages along with our own Facebook and Tanner Friedman Facebook pages. Further, as with most professional service firms, we tend to put our clients first. Further (and maybe it is a Midwest thing), Twitter has only emerged here in the past few months.”

It’s never pleasant to be at the centre of negativity when you’re looking after a PR client. It’s even less so when the negativity is about you. Yet one thing you can’t do is let it run.

While it’s clear that Tanner Friedman acted once aware of the account, there still seems to be a time lapse between the first tweet and the complaint, considering more tweets were sent throughout February and March.This is where the obvious problem lies.

Two hours can be a long time when it comes to bad news spreading on social media; two months is a lifetime in comparison.

What this lawsuit shows is the need to be proactive at every turn when it comes to hearing the conversations that are taking place as well as securing your brand early on. Otherwise, you might just find that someone’s been proactive for you.

Of course, Twitter needs to take responsibility as well. Account authorization has to be stepped up (which they are currently looking at) and their customer service currently leaves a lot to be desired. If they really want to take the service to the next level, they need to actually offer a service that looks after its users.

How about you? Do you know what’s being said about you online? How do you monitor the conversations and what advice do you give your clients and employees?

photo credit: Dude Crush

How Long Do You Let Your Brand’s Reputation Suffer? originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog - The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license.

I’m beginning to wonder about Twitter, though.

The micro-blogging company isn’t having a great time of things at the minute. From network stability issues to the recent malware attack, it’s been a testing time for Twitter.

Thanks to a new website, it could become even more testing – yet Twitter doesn’t seem particularly bothered. Should they be?

Fake-Twitter.com is a site that allows you to choose any Twitter user and make a fake Twitter status update. This is then posted like a tweet and, at a glance, looks like the real thing. If you’re not a Twitter user, you might even think it’s the genuine article.

Even if you see that it’s fake, I’m guessing that the fake tweet will show up in search engine results and look like a genuine post. You can see how damaging this could be to someone’s name or brand. So, far from being a little bit of fun, Fake-Twitter.com is ethically questionable.

So where is Twitter in all of this? So far, nowhere – yet don’t you think they should be taking action against the site, in order to protect its own users?

Even if that was legally a gray area, Twitter could take down Fake-Twitter.com for copyright breach on the site’s design, which is just like the real Twitter set up.

Maybe there’s no response yet because Twitter is busy dealing with the malware attacks on their servers – so here’s some help to the Twitter team:

1. The Fake-Twitter domain is registered at GoDaddy.com under the name of Ryan Cornwell of Columbus, OH. You can get full details – address, email, etc – here.
2. The site itself is hosted at DreamHost.com, which is located in Brea, CA – so there should be no issues with overseas hosting legalities.
3. One of the co-creators of Fake-Twitter.com is Twitter user @topherchris – I’m sure you could ask him about Fake-Twitter.com, abuse of the site and the design copyright issue.

There’s not a lot more I can (or should) do – I’m not a Twitter employee and I have my own tasks at hand. But I am a Twitter user that cares about the Twitter community, as well as the potential damage this could do to individuals and brands,  hence the collection of information for you.

It only took me about half an hour to collate all the details and do some digging on the people behind it.

The question now, Twitter, is what are you going to do about it?

How about you? Should Twitter be taking action or is Fake-Twitter.com just a harmless joke?

• Update April 13 – As of 9.00pm EST, the Fake-Twitter website is closed following an official takedown request from Twitter.

photo credit: kaioshin

Does Twitter Monitor Its Brand? Fake-Twitter.com Suggests No originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog - The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license.

Do you prefer short blog posts or longer ones?

Do you watch short movies on Youtube, or longer?

Do you prefer a one-sheet menu or a multi-page one at a restaurant?

At a bar, is your preference for 100 bottles of liquor to choose from or a more specific collection?

We spend a lot of our lives making decisions on decisions. We look at multiple choices and then wonder if we picked the right one after all. Doubt creeps into our minds, and no-one likes to doubt their decision.

Do we need so much choice all the time? Do your customers, your blog visitors, your newspaper readers, your immediate connections need that amount of choice? They come to you for a reason – should you potentially dilute that reason with too much choice?

Don’t get me wrong – choice is good. Choice stops us from stagnating. But can we choose to offer too much choice at times?

Sometimes we say better things when we don’t say anything at all. Other times small voices make the biggest noise. What choices would you prefer?

photo credit: woodleywonderworks

Small Voices originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog - The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license.