Dear me..
Sometimes Twitter is used as though its a personal channel of communication between 2 people and not the rest of the connected world. Personal insults get traded without any awareness that the rest of us can see what's happening. So people lash out and they don't realize the consequences.
Last week, Otarian, the vegan restaurant announced that it wasn't going to open a restaurant in London. The food blogger Chris Pople commented on the fact that the restaurant in London's Covent Garden was closed. Unfortunately, Otarian took exception to this and responded bitterly. Magnus has a selection of Tweets on his storify where he talk about the story of a hashtag gone sour. Grub Street picked up on the fact that the Twitter feed had gone haywire
This diatribe between Otarian and anyone that comments on Twitter to them - or uses the hashtag otarianwatch is interesting to see. It's either a very clever bit of PR or utter foolishness on the part of Otarian. Looking at the vitriol on the stream from 5th - 7th August - I'm not so sure. There's anger certainly and a lot of bitterness, resentment and nasty comments. All recorded forever on Twitter via links and screen clippings and blogs.
As Judith says in her Tweet...
A great example in how not to win friends and influence people... Social media specialists and Twitter trainers - you can see that there's still a heck of a lot of work still to be done...
Eileen Brown is a social media consultant and author of Working The Crowd: Social Media Marketing for Business.
Contact her to find out how she can help your business extend its reach.