3 Reasons Why a Twitter Rant is Rarely Helpful to Your Business

By Megan Quinn

In recent news, Tinder spoke out on Twitter against Vanity Fair about an article on the online dating app written by journalist Nancy Jo Sales. Tinder went on a 31-tweet rant after they clearly disapproved of the article’s viewpoint of how Tinder has negatively impacted dating in our modern age. But does venting online solve anything? Sure, speaking out on social media got people engaged and talking about Tinder and Vanity Fair, but not necessarily in the best ways for Tinder. 

After Tinder’s online tirade, many people surprisingly spoke up in defense of Sales and Vanity Fair. I’m sure that this wasn’t the kind of response that Tinder had anticipated. While Tinder also had many supporters posting pictures of successful married Tinder couples, they later released a statement explaining their Twitter outburst:

“We have a passionate team that truly believes in Tinder. While reading a recent Vanity Fair article about today’s dating culture, we were saddened to see that the article didn’t touch upon the positive experiences that the majority of our users encounter daily,” Tinder said in the statement. “Our intention was to highlight the many statistics and amazing stories that are sometimes left unpublished, and, in doing so, we overreacted.”

Tinder’s rant may have seemed unwarranted at first, but it actually may have been a calculated PR move. In fact, BuzzFeed journalist Claudia Koerner said she was contacted by a PR rep from Tinder and was told to be on the lookout for a response.

@summeranne I in fact got a pitch from a PR person that Tinder was about to tweet storm, and I should watch for it.

— Claudia Koerner (@ClaudiaKoerner) August 12, 2015

From a professional viewpoint, Tinder would have been safer with just releasing a factual statement in response to the Vanity Fair article. Below are three reasons why Tinder should not have blasted their thoughts publicly on social media.

1.       It’s annoying and whiny – Tinder came off looking unprofessional and immature about the situation and the criticism. Twitter user @meowseo compared the reaction to their “immature ex-boyfriend.”

2.       People can screenshot – Once something is on the Internet, it never dies and topics can resurface at any time. This incident is something that the Tinder management team will remember and have to revisit for years to come.

3.       Things can get heated – Emotions can quickly pour out and things can be said in the heat of the moment that will have to be resolved later. It seems like the Tinder rant was emotionally charged by someone involved with their social media team. 

It’s important to stop and think before starting a social media rant that may hurt your business later. We rarely recommend taking an emotional approach to this kind of situation. Tinder may have been worried that the Vanity Fair article would hurt their business, but in responding, they ended up making themselves look far worse in the process.

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Social Media Etiquette for Business on the ‘Big Three’

By Kim Tarasiewcz

We all have those friends whose updates you dread seeing in your Facebook feeds – they type in all caps, they post their political rants, or they just can’t stop posting every move they make on any given day. You try to scroll past them, but they just keep coming. And for whatever reason, you can’t unfriend the person without causing family, business or friendship issues.

Fortunately, privacy settings can be used to hide feeds entirely or to allow you to see less of certain types of posts in your news feed. Just click on the small arrow in the top right corner of the post and chose an item from the drop-down screen. Currently, however for Facebook, there is no way to unfriend someone without alerting them, so hiding posts is the best way to remove them from your feed so as not to cause disputes.

In business social media, the rules become a bit diluted and are still evolving, but there are three main platforms with which every business should be familiar. Where Facebook is the most common and one of the oldest social media platforms, LinkedIn is probably best known as the connection spot for business. LinkedIn is less about your personal connections and more about sharing business ideas and networking. Twitter moves faster with shorter “bursts” of information which can be great to get news out to the public quickly, but can be dangerous if the information is incorrect or controversial.

Facebook allows flexibility when sharing information on the site, but how often should you “tag” another business? Probably never unless previously approved by the business. At Furia Rubel, we share our client’s news and events, but only after they have sent it out and only with their permission. Our site is maintained and reviewed so that nothing offensive is on it and there is no need for clients to worry if we share news. Allowing other businesses to tag you can lead to problems if their site isn’t constantly monitored.

So what are the connection rules on LinkedIn? I’ve had several times recently where a salesperson has called and as soon as I hang up the phone telling them we don’t have a need for their services, they are connecting with me on LinkedIn. Do I accept their connection or not? I find it a strange concept to connect with someone you’ve never met and most likely won’t meet or ever develop a relationship with. But it’s business, so most of the time, I will connect because there may be a need in the future for their services or for business leads, but also because I don’t like to burn bridges.

Twitter can be a great tool, especially for events like a press conference or seminars as you can give quick updates on what is happening and provide links to details if people need more information. Because Twitter limits the number of characters in an individual tweet to 140, it forces creativity with wording in your messages and choosing hashtags or you may end up with a stream of unwanted items. It’s so easy to send something off; before tweeting or re-tweeting, be sure the information is legitimate.

But as with any social media platform, too many posts, tags or tweets can cause viewers to hide or to skip your posts. Look around – if the same person repeatedly comments on your items or if no one is commenting, maybe you need a campaign to attract new followers or to add something more interesting to your pages. And for goodness sakes, DON’T POST IN ALL CAPS – no one likes to be yelled at.