It seems that you can’t be anywhere near the England cricket squad at the moment without indulging in a spot of Twitter ranting against your current (or future) employers – in this case, the England and Wales Cricket Board.
The recent exploits of England cricketer Kevin Pietersen and his reaction to being left out of the forthcoming one-day series against Pakistan, demonstrated poor judgement on his part, but also vividly illustrated the power of social media to set the news agenda – both on and offline.
Pietersen’s displeasure with the decision was, albeit briefly, available for the world to see via his Twitter feed.
Regardless of the merits of the content, what this and other similar episodes illustrate is the power of social media to drive the modern news agenda. This example became a lead story for all of the major news channels including broadcast and online within hours of its ‘erroneous’ posting, in addition to leading the way for many of the printed media the following day.
Add that to the suspension of the former England under-19 captain, Azeem Rafiq and the impending disciplinary hearing that probably awaits Hampshire and England’s Dimitri Mascarenhas and there has rarely been a day during the last week or so when this topic hasn’t featured across the media.
This change in the media landscape is inevitably going to continue to grow – whether you are an individual in the public eye, or operate your business social media feeds, it’s essential that your message remains professional, despite the more informal nature of social networking.
Otherwise, you may end up fending off some rather unpleasant bouncers of your own making!
One of Pieterson's comments in his apology made me laugh out loud. He said: "It wasn't meant for the public domain". That does indicate a somewhat fundamental gap in his knowledge of what Twitter actually is!
ReplyDeleteA good number of the high profile Twitter disasters seem to occur when the tweeter is 'tired and emotional'. I believe that there are developers trying to come up with an app that allows people to censor themselves after a certain time. Whether that will be effective is debatable as there are so many ways to update Twitter these days. The 'app' that really needs to be used is that old favourite, 'Common Sense'. The number of people who have that installed is of course open to debate.