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Earlier this week WFAN’s Mike Francesa had an awesome rant on Twitter. Some of the top sound bites include Twitter should be illegal, one of these days someone will monetize it and Twitter cuts the middle man out of sports journalism.

Now sports radio is known for dumb things being said, but this may take the cake. I guess we can just chalk this one up to old media not wanting to admit that media is changing.

Would you want to be the grandkid or production assistant who has to educate Francesa on Twitter?

By the time the Capitals were done celebrating Ward’s overtime goal that knocked the Boston Bruins out of the playoffs; Ward was the center of a different emotion online.

Immediately following the goal Ward, who is a black Canadian player, was the target of irate fans using racial epithets and slurs on Twitter.

No matter how much you believe in free speech, I hope most of you will agree that these posts are disgusting and reflect poorly on the authors. After the flood on Twitter, Capitals Owner Ted Leonsis offered his take on his blog:

What these people have said and done is unforgivable. I hope they are now publicly identified and pay a huge price for their beliefs. There should be zero tolerance for this kind of hate mongering. Their messages should now stay glued into the algorithms to place a forever warning and a mark upon these people and their actions. They shouldn’t be able to escape their keystrokes.

While Leonsis’ opinion may sound extreme, it is not too far from what is possible, given the data that is shared on social networks. I am sure that the majority of the folks who Tweeted out this vitriol thought they were being snarky or funny to their friends did not realize the reach of what they Tweeted. In reality their Tweets have went well beyond that network.

This is 2012 and the whole naivety around social networks needs to go away and these rants only further showcase how society in general is clueless as to the reach of what is said online. There is a clear line as to decency and what is acceptable out in public – where users of social networks not only reflect themselves, but also their employers.

With all the ugliness aside, I do think that this incident offers some real teaching and learning experiences for everyone who congregates on a social network at any given moment.

Education is key – Before sharing something on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Path or a blog, take a step back and think about how that can be seen by others. This also includes looking at the individual network privacy settings and how your content can be used. And don’t forget that whatever you post can be forwarded, reposted, copied, etc by those in your network regardless of your privacy settings.

Online = Offline – Do you ever think about hitting send on a Tweet or status update? Chances are that more times than not you don’t. It is easy to voice your opinion because a social network is all about you and how you interact with friends. What many people do not realize is that employers are looking at these updates and can, at times, deny or terminate employment because of what was posted. Many of the folks who tweeted out these posts might be marked as Leonsis suggested and denied employment due to the beliefs that they made public.

Words can hurt you – The old adage of sticks and stones breaking bones and words never hurting you rings false when it comes to social media. There have been a number of people fired for their Tweets and one of the Tweeters in the Joel Ward incident is currently facing punishment from his school in Massachusetts. At the end of the day, we may all be entitled to our opinions, but employers and schools reserve the right to punish those who use a public platform to voice outlandish thoughts and hate speech.

While I know that these three points might seem basic, it appears that they still need to be said because so many people just don’t get it.

Image -  clydeorama

Hope you enjoy and find something to smile about.

I must also confess that I am a social media junkie, so my love affair and ease of use does not apply to the non-geeky populous who flock to Facebook like it was the last piece of dry land in Waterworld. Twitter is not easy and the interface is bulky, new users like my wife, find it clunky, overwhelming and at times dumb. To prove that those claims are not slander, it has been estimated that out of 200 million registered users on the microblogging site, only 20-40 million are active accounts.

Sure New Twitter and apps like Seesmic Look (remember the sensory overload launch?) aim to make it easy for users to get acclimated, but non-geeks aren’t into 3^rd party apps and want to use it on site. So it is a catch-22 of a hurdle that I didn’t think Twitter could get past, until I saw the email below that my wife received yesterday alerting her that I @ replied to her:

Now while I don’t like these emails for me and haven’t gotten emails from Twitter in months, it gives a call to action to return to the site. If I don’t want to log in every day, I don’t have to and is kind of like LinkedIn’s alerts that draw me back to the site to accept or decline requests – which is the only reason I really ever log onto LinkedIn. I also love this email system because it shows the willingness and want from the folks at Twitter to get away from the tech-nerd community and get the cool kids involved with their service.

What do you think of this? Is it a gimmick that will drive people away from the service, or will it increase the migration to Twitter’s flock?

There are a ton of useful nuggets in the piece that can boost your case if you are still trying to “sell” a particular network to your boss, CMO, president or just to yourself. Below are the stats that really stood out to me:

• Asian companies saw a 68% growth in corporate Twitter accounts
• The followers of corporate Twitter accounts grew 241% year over year
• 40% of corporate Twitter accounts engage in some kind of customer service
• US companies average 5.3 Facebook fan pages a 179% increase
• The US saw a 63% increase in corporate blogs
• 36% of companies maintain blogs globally

You can view the full research report below:

Do you think that using 100 companies on the Fortune 100 list was too small a sampling? Or do you think it gives us a good overall view?

While there’s still a place for Yelp in my heart, I’ve found lately that I much prefer using Twitter and Foursquare to find new places and things to do here in Boston. Yelp has become more of a secondary resource to me–a follow-up after I consult the other two platforms to get details (like hours and menu offerings!), and even then it’s usually only a Google search that leads me to visit Yelp. While I give Yelp big props for SEO (it’s almost always a top-five result when I search for a restaurant or other venue), I just don’t really need it anymore. Sorry, Yelp: I’m kinda over you.

Foursquare, on the other hand, offers a ton of relevant information, and the best part is that the recommendations I find there are mostly fueled by my friends–people I actually know, like, and whose opinions I respect. I can see where my friends have recently checked in. Depending on the night, that tells me about a fun new restaurant, whether the Red Sox are home or away, that a particular bar I normally enjoy is way too crowded to wait in line for, etc. And since it’s a mobile app, I can use it to find places near me no matter where I am in the city. Even if I’m not in the mood to meet up with my friends where they’re checked in, I can see what cool venues are around me and read tips from other people who have checked in there–they’re like little mini-reviews that give me a great nugget of information to help me decide whether I want to stop by.

Twitter is also a great recommendation engine, though not necessarily what it was designed for. Still, I have an extensive network of people I follow on Twitter who, through link-sharing, insightful comments, witty @ replies, and other useful information, I have come to regard as a resource for any decision about what to do, where to go, and how to get there. Unlike Yelp, updates from the people I follow on Twitter get pushed out to me in realtime, so I get an immediate update if a venue is closed for a private event (in fact, the restaurant/bar might even tweet it out from their own account!). Realtime feedback=realtime AWESOME.

So while there’s nothing wrong with Yelp, and I still fondly remember it from time-to-time, it’s not really my speed these days. What can I say? I’ve grown up in a world where instant is a requirement: I want what I say I want when I say I want it. Call me spoiled, but with the array of venues at my fingertips with Twitter and Foursquare around, I just don’t need Yelp anymore. Like that high school boyfriend, I’ve outgrown it. I’ve moved up, moved on.

About Elisabeth Michaud

Elisabeth recently joined Communispace Corporation in Watertown, MA after a stint as a PR and Social Media pro. By night, she is a social media addict, grammar nerd, Red Sox fan and adamant Gen Y advocate. You can find her on Twitter @emichaud or blogging over at social-logical.

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Many people ask me why I do it and to be honest I am addicted to the real-time engagement. Whether it’s manning the corporate account or hopping in chats, Twitter allows me to constantly connect with people and learn without having to be in a classroom.

When asked to describe in 140 characters, I responded with:

@PRCog Connection platform that cuts to the chase, meat & potatoes. If you can't say in 140 characters, GFY

March 21, 2011 1:13 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@jeffespo

Jeff Esposito

Why do you Tweet?

These networks were not the underlying reason for social change, but rather served as an avenue to provide the world with an unfiltered account of what was going on.  The revolutionaries got THEIR message out about the CHANGE that THEY wanted.

We are living in a day and age where real change is being made around the world and playing out in front of our eyes on the social web. Here are some interesting numbers that were passed along to me from my friend Dennis who works at the The American University in Cairo:

• Egypt gained 632,120 new Facebook users from January-February, 2011 an increase of 12.16%
• On February 1 (the day the Internet was turned back on) Egypt gained 100,000 new Facebook users
• Globally there were 1,317,233 Egyptian related Tweets between January 24-30
• Egypt leads African nations with ~5.2M Facebook users, despite having only 6.46% of the country’s Internet population on Facebook.
• Egyptian Twitter adoption grew 10X in January

To see the full presentation and graphs from the folks at .digitalrepublic|, click here.

While the numbers are spectacular, the pale in comparison to what the Egyptian people were able to do. Times are changing in both how politics and the news are being played out. Do you see this as something that will grow in the future?  I think we’ll see it more, but hey, who knows, I could be wrong and would love to hear your take.

With that said, there are three common threads that often emerge in individuals’ use of social media: self-absorption; voyeurism; and a need to be connected. They are beautifully displayed in this social media Venn diagram from the folks at Despair.com under the headings narcissism, stalking and ADHD (their words, not mine).

Image - Despair.com

It’s a pretty graphic that calls out some of the ugliness that lies behind the social nature of these sites. Don’t believe me? Ponder on this:

Narcissism- In the past year, personal branding has been a constant trending topic and buzz word across the social space. The thought is that while doing your job, you also have to look out for number one. Everything from Tweeting and blogging to networking events is all about you and finding the next big break for you.

I see it as kind of backwards, but if you think about it, most blogs that you read (including this one) fall under the author’s name. You also see many folks on Twitter and Facebook sharing their latest posts over and over as it’s a way to bring more people to seeing what they are doing.  One downside to oversharing is that communities like Twitter seem to self police themselves. Over-sharing blowhards of the “I” and “Me” varieties tend to put folks off and lose followers.

Stalking – In general, the term stalking typically comes along with a negative connotation. Well, that was until folks added Facebook to it. How many of you have said that you were going to Facebook stalk someone? Don’t be modest, everyone knows you do it. The question really is does it make it right?

Sure much of the information is public, but when does it become an invasion of privacy? I am no judge, lawyer or purveyor of online privacy, but also think that somewhere down the line we’ll see something come up about this in the legislature.

We should never take stalking lightly, even if we make it easier for folks to do it with geo-location sites like foursquare, SCVNGR and Facebook places. My friend Michael Dolan penned a great piece a while back on perhaps the first instance of foursquare stalking (take a read if you haven’t heard the story). It is definitely scary. In theory its cool to see where your friends are (would have been key in high school pre-cell phone years), but it also can let burglars and creeps know where you are and aren’t.

ADHD – I have never been formally diagnosed with ADHD, but I can sure multi-task like no other. Surely some of you are the same way.

No matter how good you are at juggling, social can be a true time suck if you try to see everything at once. You can’t do it, so don’t try. For some reason, if you think you can, may I suggest the following to help paint a picture:

• RockMelt – this browser was created for people with a short attention span as it ties in RSS feeds, Twitter and Facebook within one browser. It has more pop-ups than VH1’s Pop-Up Video. I still have some invites so ping me if you want one to give it a go.
• LiveFyre – I blame Danny Brown for putting me onto this comment system. I have fallen in love with it and it offers more fluid commenting on many blogs and links to people’s SM accounts so you can easily follow a commenter or socially share. Depending on your settings, you can receive instant updates to bring the conversation from Twitter to your blog.
• Facebook groups – If you are in an active group, you probably see Facebook (1) cookied into your browser. These groups are very beneficial, but can also be easily derail your productivity if you join the cult.

When you have tried all three of these for a week and stayed on top of them religiously take a look at your “To Do” list and see how many things are crossed off. Chances are that it’s not as good as you thought.

At the end of the day, this diagram should show that we all need to take ourselves less seriously. We all will fall somewhere in between one of the three buckets, I know where I am, do you?

Many of these people are not familiar with the space and question metrics that they cannot understand. It’s often hard to satisfy their question as to how do you know you are doing things the right way.

Instead of having to search for an answer, Marie Wise of Kalama, Washington said it for us beautifully in this Tweet:

@jeffespo you are doing a great job on @Vistaprint PR, Im a customer because of it!

December 14, 2010 11:08 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@artsylady

Marie Wise, APR

Marie on behalf of the entire Public Relations team (Jason Keith and Nick Gosselin) at Vistaprint, I’d like to say thank you for the Tweet. We’re very happy that you’ve chosen our company for your marketing materials and the Tweet made our week.

You’ve helped us see that the work we’ve been doing in the social realm for the past two plus year are resonating with the community at large.

Now while it looks cool, there was some chatter that the new Twitter would do away with our beloved desktop apps. I would hate it if that happened, because even though the new Twitter looks cool, it works fine the way it is. I am not a new user for them to acquire so I don’t need the in-website features, but can see how it can appeal to some. Kind of like New Coke back in the day.

What do you think?

Vistaprint: Earning Revenue Through Social Media

Twitter X-Factors – AG2010 (ExactTarget)