Whenever an individual or business makes a terrible mistake using social media, we at Windy City Strategies want to make sure we call it out, in order to help us all avoid similar ones in the future.
But, I really hope this lesson isn’t needed here.
Congressman Anthony Weiner tweeted a lewd photo of himself to a young college woman, specifically, not his wife. Now, as this case was unfolding, I thought to myself, “this idiot simply doesn’t understand how to use Twitter.” But we have since learned that’s not true. He was a voracious tweeter. An addict, if you will. And he often and repeatedly sent lewd images of himself across the Net to various women. The problem here was he @ replied when he meant to DM direct message.
That’s it. That’s the mistake that caused this uproar…to happen when it did. Someone this stupid was going to get caught sooner or later. But, it’s a good time for a Twitter reminder. If you @reply to someone, they are alerted to your message in their @timeline, but anyone can see it. If someone follows both of you, it shows up on their standard timeline. Only by direct messaging someone do tweets stay in a personal e-mail like format.
Even so, we don’t have to remind you just not to do something like this. Or if you are, by God, please stop!