This Week’s Top Stories
On Instagram and Other Social Media, Redefining “User Engagement
(New York Times, 9/20/15)
PNConnect Insight – Leveraging user-generated content is one of the best ways for a brand to connect with its community and fans. And it could be argued that consumers have a responsibility here too: If you tag a brand in your post, you’re practically inviting them to use your content. That said, Rule Number One of user-generated content is a brand must receive written permission to use a fan’s content before doing more than retweeting it. A photo published on a public platform is not public property. Typically, the law considers that even when a person publishes something online, as soon as a brand chooses to use it, the content becomes advertising and therefore requires permission.
Donald Trump Invited Twitter To #AskTrump Anything, And Here’s What Happened
(TIME, 9/21/15)
PNConnect Insight – Politics aside, Trump’s #AskTrump Twitter stunt demonstrates a larger concern that brands should think about when considering doing a Twitter chat: unpredictability. (JPMorgan Chase also learned this the hard way.) TIME left out the more political or cutting responses and included only those that were going for laughs, but trust us that many of the questions would have been considered off-message by the candidate or his staff. When engaging the Twitter community live, you can and probably will get every kind of question under the sun: favorable and friendly ones, weird and irrelevant ones, and, most concerningly, negative and antagonistic ones. You don’t need to skip Twitter chats entirely, but be prepared for a range of community sentiments. Brief your executive or spokesperson accordingly and prepare answers to the most negative questions you can anticipate. Otherwise, your chat could turn embarrassing or negative in a hurry.
Read the rest of the stories on the PNConnect blog.