Yesterday afternoon a local (alternative music) radio station stirred up quite the bee’s nest for itself. It all started with one simple tweet.
Shortly after this was sent the account came under a ton of heat for the statement. The author of the tweet stayed around long enough to defend the statement to many of those who challenged it then went to bed ending the event with a tweet stating, well…have a look at the whole shenanigan yourself:
I am all for brands expressing their “personality” online. That’s great. That is a critical part of social media. What doesn’t make sense is that this type of a statement is not in alignment with their typical personality and stands out as culturally insensitive at the very least. They are not a shock-jock kind of station but they certainly have tweeted about non-music related content in the past.
Using a branded account such as this one to make such a politically charged and insensitive statement is, well, all kinds of messed up. They’ve found themselves with a bit of a hot mess in their lap. With the twitter-verse all lined up and ready to point fingers most of the station’s staff are on vacation as reported by TechFlash.
Their PR agency (corrected by Monti in comments below) corporate owner, Entercom, has not issued any kind of statement on this incident either. The only existing apology or redaction on the part of 107.7 TheEnd came in the form of a tweet that read:
So. You were hacked. Really? REALLY? I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I actually believe this. If I am wrong, then I will be eating crow later and that’s fine. It is what it is. I will say that everything about this feels wrong. Even if they were hacked I would expect to have heard something about it on their radio show this morning. Nope. I would have expected to see an apology on their blog. Nope. Own it. Look at your mistake as an opportunity to be transparent with your community. Be HONEST about what happened.
The Stranger also posted an article with some interesting points on this topic. Including the fact that the “hacker” was allowed to tweet for 4 days before the problem was addressed.
The unfortunate part is this is not the first time we have seen them act irresponsibly in the online space. Kristin Marshall went round with them about a click fraud incident in a contest earlier this year. Their response to that wasn’t, shall we say, “impressive” either. 107.7 TheEnd has shown a lack of understanding and irresponsibility in this space. From here they can do a few different things. 1) Ignore it and hope it goes away, 2) attempt at a proper response *taps foot* or 3) Get pissy.
I am not alone in thinking that this ‘hack’ is an excuse. If it is not, then I apologize for suggesting otherwise. But the fact of the matter still stands – the statement was a gross display and a proper apology and deserved attention needs to be exerted on this incident immediately. If it was indeed a ‘hack’ then I’d suggest getting a stronger hold on your security measures. (Also a side note I suppose, I was not aware hackers favored Tweetie. Hmm.. so using 107.7 The End’s logic: All hackers are Tweetie users, but not all Tweetie users are hackers. Is that right?) Okay – so that was a bit of a pot shot…the point is, hack or not this could be (and hopefully will be) handled far better. Step up your game Mr. Radio Station. This is not helping your uphill climb for survival.
—UPDATED—
SeattleWeekly has since updated their post. Mark Kaplan, the program director, stands by the fact that the account was hacked by either someone who was able to get a hold of the password information or straight up hacked into the open account. Either way, he says they were hacked. So. There it is. Fine. They were hacked. Still not convinced. But whatevs.
I still have a problem with the fact that this person was able to maintain access to the account for four days. Social media doesn’t get vacations. Social media doesn’t take a holiday. Social media doesn’t even sleep in on Christmas morning. Sorry. Do I feel bad this happened to them? Yes. But I also think this is why it is important to learn social media rather than just fumbling your way into it. You have a brand in your hands. An entire brand. Act accordingly.
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They need a new PR firm – just saying. Nice piece.
Deleting tweets only made 107.7 look more guilty. Where’s the transparency? Also, they can provide proof of the supposed hack if they wanted to… #justsayin
Great post, Kristy. Nicely summed up!
@Mona I am surprised that their existing agency hasn’t stepped up to comment yet. Too bad.
@Veronica Thanks much! And, I think at this point it wouldn’t be a bad idea for them to show proof. Things are just to “iffy” right now and too many people are questioning the legitimacy of the hacks. Would be a good move on their part. I would certainly redact my doubt if they did that.
Racist or True?? I don’t understand people gettig pissed about that tweet…if something is true then so be it. Can we only say what everybody thinks we should say?? or can we talk about the truth even if it isn’t pretty. This statement is true. Are all muslims bad folks, nope. Who are the ones that killed all those people in NY? Muslim extremists. Statement of fact. Suck it up…if the truth hurts change it. Fix the problem like the father of the man who tried to blow up the plane on xmas. He actually tried to warn that his son was a terrorist. Start trying to better the race, and move out of Sharia laws, and killing people (including their own).
“Step up your game Mr. Radio Station” … couldn’t agree more. Whether the hack was legit or a cover is a side note at this point. I think we are seeing another example of where the line still remains gray–how much personality is too much? where are the filters? where are the lines drawn when a person is now a brand? These questions are still being explored as social continues to evolve.
I do second Mona’s comment…if there is one relationship that must truly exist for any brand in the social arena its the relationship between the social team and the PR team. We aren’t here to replace the PR team, we are here to facilitate the messages and share the content. Social for me will always be a visibility engine, and in the case above it was a damn disaster of message delivery. That is for sure.
Great piece lady.
I do want to mention that the activity last night was extremely typical of the 1077theend account.
http://tweetstats.com/graphs/1077TheEnd
They barely ever tweet after 8pm and very rarely reply to people or hold a conversation. The “oh no we got hacked” excuse is definitely a little suspicious, seeing as how the errant tweets came from Tweetie. That said, a “howto” on hijacking Twitter accounts was published Dec 24 and there are a ridiculous number of ways to compromise Twitter accounts. So it was either a malicious attack, or a stupid employee.
As for the PR response – they’ve addressed it on the medium where it occurred. This is what Pepsi did two months ago as well (http://dcortesi.com/2009/10/12/pr-in-a-twitter-world/ ) and it blew over.
Correction – extremely *atypical*.
Just to be clear, Entercom is not their “PR agency” but their corporate ownership. They operate four stations in Seattle.
http://www.entercomseattle.com/
I can’t say as I’m surprised they blew off Kristin – the End’s web contests are a joke (some sour grapes, a family member entered their best photo contest, was doing rather well, and then some clearly automated voting took place (the station said vote totals wouldn’t decide, but the winner was the highest vote getter) and the winning photo didn’t even really fit the spirit of the contest) and they don’t take measures to ensure fairplay.
Then again, they are a pretty small station (as in they had to lay off their night DJ to bring in their new morning host, they share personnel with other Entercom owned stations in Seattle, all their DJs do weekend shifts, they only have three regular DJs, one of their DJs is the music director too, etc.) so I can understand why in some cases they have to make those (bad) choices. And with being a small station comes the lack of eyes on this situation as it unfolded, especially over the holidays.
Hacker? Probably not, but definitely not a station endorsed communication either.
I fail to see why that was a controversial stance. Nearly all terrorists are muslims. That’s a simple and verifiable fact. Where’s the fire?
Okay, okay, PETA is mostly not muslim, and they are definitely domestic terrorists, but still…
To Darcy:
(a) Timothy McVeigh/Oklahoma City
(b) The Unibomber
(c) Columbine
(d) The San Ysidro McDonald’s massacre
(e) And only slightly tongue-in-cheek: George Washington et al (in the view of King George)
Seriously, what does a “Muslim” look like? This American, for example, looks slightly Jewish (http://bit.ly/7L0ehJ)
Profiling based on skin color is an artifact of the Jim Crow era.
The fact is that in this holiday case, like 9-11, government officials/employees ignored intelligence. [Hello! His /father/ called the US Embassy to give a warning!]
Finally, I agree with you, Kristy – not a “hack” but either poor guidance or wanton disregard for guidance.
@Coren – The entire radio industry has taken a hit. I personally know quite well individuals who have worked in similar stations in much smaller markets and yes, they were hurting for resources. Then I question whether a business so strapped for man hours should really be embarking into social media then. I can’t answer that for them. I guess my point is, don’t do if you can’t do it right. They are obviously struggling to grasp the serious toll SM can take on a brand, thus the lack of oversight it is given. I hope that this experience helps them to see just how harmful an unwatched channel can be.
Christ. You ‘social media’ people are nothing but hacks.
Seriously. Where do you get off being critical of another business like this.
Do they owe YOU an apology?
I think you are just condemnable for using this incident to attract attention to your blog.
Come on, that’s all you’re doing right? Everything is a PR move for you right? I mean, that’s what you do.
Sickening.
Well, “Anonymous” thank you for stopping by. I am not critical of the business. I am however, critical of how they responded. They do not owe me an apology in any way shape or form. I was simply writing about an incident that I saw fold out that I found interesting. Am I using this as a way to get attention for my blog? Hellz no. Honestly, I’m mid re-design right now and I’d almost prefer no one looked at the darn thing until it was complete. However, these things arise when they choose, not when I do. So criticize if you will. This is my blog and I write about what I find interesting. This – well, it was rather interesting to me. And ps, chastising under the name ‘Anonymous’ makes you the sickening one in my book. Just sayin.
Perhaps a better (and more believeable) PR spin than “we were hacked for four days” would have been “We apologize if we offended anyone, but we need to beef up our right-wing bonafides for a potential acquisition by Fox News. Or at the very least an correspondent’s position on Hannity.”
Kristy: I’m leaning towards believing the “hack” explanation, with the caveat that it might be an internal “hack” (unofficial post by an employee). And find the 4 day lag just mind-numbingly daft. A bit more detail on the “hack” would be a good exercise in transparency and eliminate any lingering concern that this thread is reflective of Entercom’s policies. With that said, though, I expect 107.7 is otherwise ok. I doubt they’ll lose any sponsors or revenue over this. And I doubt any org will launch a campaign against them. Thus, I doubt this will damage their brand that terribly much. At worst, they’re looking like fumbling amatuers (and radio is “media”…they should be savvier). Hopefully, though, their management will take away from this a renewed respect for security (passwords, access, whatever), and for monitoring their “stuff”.
@Darcy & @Otto: theme of this blog is social media. Why don’t you find some Glen Beck forum or something.
Just curious as to why earlier posts not blasting the station strong enough or offering counter opinions were deleted? There’s talk about transparency, but there is a type of manipulation/editing that can make one point of view appear like the only one, when it may not be. If something is completely off-topic, it’s one thing, but one cannot advocate for transparency and then not follow it. Or the account was hacked and posts were deleted.
@Carl I think you have a couple really great points. I agree with you – I don’t think this will tarnish their brand all that much, especially outside of the sm circles. I don’t think they’ll lose any sponsors over it either.
@David I wish I had a plug in or something that let me “thumb up” a comment.
Kristy, Great post and insight. And, I agree with that Joanna Lord said, too.
I think every brand should list who is tweeting from their account. For social media, this a must-do.
@Kristy – if it were anything other than reposts of their facebook that are probably made by the DJs themselves, I’d agree, but it’s so very clearly double dipping given the time the posts are made.
@Carl – bingo, especially with the “my own show” tweet. Former intern, current intern, angry intern, who knows. Intern, though, definitely
Well dang it! I was just doing some clean up and accidentally deleted all pending comments Akismet marked as spam. Most of those usually are spam but every once in awhile a “real” comment will fall in there. If you come back and don’t happen to see a comment you left previously please feel free to post again and I will NOT delete it this time. Sorry!!!