Patrick Barbanes

Patrick-
You cover a ton of ground here, but I will try and stick with the landlord/tenant twitter issue.

I think what people are pointing out is that since the person “only” had 22 followers, this story would never have risen to anyone’s attention until Horizon decided to go to DefCon 5. The reaction was not commensurate with the tweet, and that is why now Horizon has a huge PR problem on its hands. At least, that was my perspective when I tweeted it.

To your point about “whiners,” I would suggest the following. All of us, at one time or another, have felt pushed around and abused by “fill in the blank” faceless company. What social media SOMETIMES can do is level the playing field and give schmoes like you and me a chance to get some satisfaction from United, Comcast, Coke, Bank of America, AT&T or whomever. Years of frustration can sometimes erupt sideways (your “whiners” take), but the mistake that poor communicators always make is in not remembering to let the other person(s) feel “felt” or simply acknowledged. You might not fix my problem, but if I know that I spoke to “Maria from United” and she actually seemed to give a damn that my guitar was broken, that can go a long way toward ameliorating the situation.

To quote our President, I don’t know all the facts, but it seems as if Horizon acted stupidly. But none of us who have ever rented from a big property management group will be able to muster up too much sympathy for them. And that is the precise point that they miss, and they just made it a million times worse for themselves.

Matt –
Thanks for your comment. I WAS trying to cover a lot of ground in that post – thanks for noticing. Because I think the landlord/tenant issue is a no-brainer – what goofball landlord would sue someone for $50 million thousand dollars for that tweet. It’s like the woman who sued Apple for $1 Million for the price-cut on the iPhone. Silly, probably stupid, definitely an overreaction.

But the issue is a good jumping-off point, I think, for a discussion about other issues: how social media can best be used. Me, I see a creeping sense of crowd-thuggery, to coin a term. It’s crowdsourcing gone wrong, lol. An explicit “threat” from a social media throng that can end up convicting the wrong people, and without a proper trial, to stretch the metaphor.

I LOVE the power that the internet puts into our hands. I see it as an incredible levelling of the playing field. Governments and all other forms of power can no longer hide (very well or for very long) what they’re doing.

But if social media becomes a hammer for every whining customer complaint, or just a medium for viral gossip that doesn’t know how to really report facts (was the tweeters statement that “Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? HORIZON REALTY THINKS IT’S OKAY.” – emphasis mine – even good reporting?), then I’m just a little disappointed.

So I’m just sending up a little warning flare. : )

Patrick – Not sure if I missed this with what the story is, but this wasn’t an all out twitter battle. The way I see it, someone posted a negative about a company and then said company filed a lawsuit. How is that social media hitting us back? Hmm..

Here were my two cents on it (link: http://konstructr.com/horizon-realtys-blunder/). Let me know what you think.

[...] If I Had A Social Media Hammer …   Patrick Barbanes [...]

Vik –
Thanks for your comment. I don’t know, maybe I wasn’t as clear as I could be. : ) My main point is that many social media enthusiasts feel empowered by social media. Rightly so. But social media can also be used as a hammer – wrongly so, in my opinion – to blast any and every business some tweeter may have a problem with. In the renter’s particular case, it’s probably true that nothing good OR bad would have come from her tweet. Probably. But stop using the incredible technology of social media to whine about every little inconvenience you may suffer, while fully EXPECTING that the company you complain about should tremble in fear because you’ll bring down the wrath of social media crowdsourcing on them, while NOT expecting any possible repercussions (like lawsuits or someone dredging up YOUR dirty digital laundry).

My post was less about the reaction of the landlord and how businesses like theirs should be getting on the social media bandwagon, than about how social media is sometimes being used by it’s very evangelists as an inappropriate hammer.

That’s a subtle way of tinhknig about it.

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