Earlier today, my friend @bellindsay made a comment on twitter with a hashtag that read #stupidinjuries (which is pretty darn funny). For anyone who doesnt understand what a hashtag represents, I defer to the twitter Help Section which states:
Definition: The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.
So anyway, I proceeded to respond with a tweet of a story that happened to me at a Wisconsin Dells water park when I was 10 years old. Looking back, it was a VERY bad idea to dive to the bottom of the Lazy River, which resulted in a badly scratched and cut up chin, lip and nose.
Then I remembered an even better story. And to cut to the chase, it was high-school, (probably alcohol involved), I was delivering something with friends in a Uhaul truck and somehow, the details are fuzzy, but I was standing on something and when the truck door came up, SMACK! Knocks me in the head, I get leveled and have a giant cut on my head, which to this day has left a small scar on my eyebrow.
The point of this post isnt to share my misfortunes with everyone, although I suposse, this makes it that much more fun to read. No, the point is to share what happened next.
I recieved the following Tweet from none other than the nice folks over at @UHaul_cares…
The gesture was nice but I think Uhaul has missed the point.
In my recent blog post on the Radian6 Blog about Failed Communication, I spoke about this a little bit but want to elaborate.
I applaud Uhaul for getting involved in the Social Media space, I really do. And not only are they doing, they seem to be engaged and fairly responsive which is exciting and refreshing to see.
To be clear, its not the act of responding to my tweet that was bad, in fact, its awesome that they responded in the first place. The real problem is the way they responded. There could have been a quick fun way to involve themselves in the conversation to let their presence be known and engage with me and other customers.
But there is a level of understanding that everyone has to learn. There are nuances (which at this point the hashtag is no longer a nuance) and an entire culture around Social Media, that communities will expect you to understand. And its not hard to learn. Its a culture that anyone can be part of. In this example, I wasn’t looking for anything. In fact my post had nothing to do with Uhaul. And heck, if they didn’t respond to me, I wouldn’t have even known they were on twitter! I was just sharing a story with a friend and joining the larger #stupidinuries conversation which was clearly labeled with a hashtag and contextually could have gone ignored by Uhaul.
Have you had a similar experience? Do you agree or disagree?
I would love to hear other thoughts on this.
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