How Not to Win Friends and Influence Others

It's no secret that social media is big in the meetings industry, with capacity-crowd educational sessions at conferences devoted to the often amorphous topic.

What is the best use of social media? What can it do for my meeting? Who should be allowed to tweet, and when? Will it increase attendance? What are the dangers associated with having a social media presence? Or, simply, what is it?

Convene covered this topic extensively in our February issue's cover story package (which you can read here), including discussion of a higher education conference at which the tweets got downright nasty. Unfortunately, it seems that many associations and organizations have to learn things the hard way when it comes to social media.

Or you could pay attention to some high-profile social media belly flops on the part of major corporations, all of which have recently handled (sometimes poorly, sometimes skillfully) online conflagarations.

The five lessons that can be learned from social media public relations disasters, according to a recent Atlantic blog post, are:

1. Don't get defensive
2. Closely watch social networks for complaints
3. Don't stalk your customers
4. Be vigilant of how employees use social media
5. Don't insult a cohesive community

For more on this — including discussion of the companies' boneheaded moves that launched a thousand tweets — click through here.