A 140-character impression

Posted by: Dr Ashley Tan on: August 28, 2015

In: Uncategorized
2 Comments

It started with a tweet from @hsiao_yun.

Hey @RoughGuides I SERIOUSLY doubt this pic shows Singapore, unless someone shifted us much further N of equator. http://t.co/Jc1EnWpt9T

— CHAN Hsiao-yun 曾曉韻 (@hsiao_yun) August 25, 2015

I weighed in with this:

@hsiao_yun Good catch. Only nut cases would wear that gear here. How rough is @RoughGuides? So coarse as to be inaccurate?
—
Dr Ashley Tan (@ashley) August 25, 2015

Why did we tweet? The original photo was supposed to feature Singapore, but the two men in the foreground were wearing cold weather gear.

Then @RoughGuides tweeted:

@hsiao_yun @ashley Hi there, well spotted on the photo. This was our mistake! We're looking into changing it now. Thanks for nudging us!
—
Rough Guides (@RoughGuides) August 25, 2015

I have interacted with many individuals and organizations on Twitter. At least, I have tried. More often than not they do not reply. If they do, they drop canned messages, are ill-equipped, or forget to be social.

@RoughGuides’ tweet had the components of a well-crafted response to critical inputs. Here is a sentence-by-sentence deconstruction.

Acknowledgement: Hi there, well spotted on the photo.
Admission: This was our mistake!
Action: We’re looking into changing it now.
Appreciation: Thanks for nudging us!

It changed the main photo of the online resource shortly after tweeting. If only more Twitter entities acted like this.

Being on social media is not about bearing down in silence or ignoring sincere comments or questions. Far too many people and organizations using Twitter do this (@TwitterSG included!). I am ashamed to note that I know teachers and educators who do this too.

Learning on Twitter is about engaging others whether you are right or wrong*. It is about having honest and open conversations. It is about giving back. If we do these consistently, we would learn what it is really like to be social in social media. We would learn something about ourselves and want to be better.

*Addendum: The exception might be responding to trolls.