When speaking with Agency and Institution officers about their Social Media Presence, or lack thereof, more often than not they do not see the value of monitoring or the necessity of participating in it until a sentinel event illustrates how they are now open to criticism and the cascade of public opinion that may come with that. Recently, there was such an event.

The Criticism

Nicole White is the author of the blog My Bottle’s Up. On October 16 she posted a blog entry titled “tsa agents took my son“. The post was a dramatic account of her experience at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport with TSA Agents who, according to her account, separated her from her son for an extended period of time.

The post was a heart wrenching tale that placed a far less than favorable view of the TSA. The post received exposure on Twitter thanks to a large number of retweets and over 300 comments. The story was shared on Facebook, and the site itself received over 40,000 visitors on that day according to its Sitemeter.

The Defense

With the exposure given this post through Social Media, tens of thousands of people would have a negative perception of how the TSA treats passengers, particularly mothers of toddlers. Now if the TSA did not have a Social Media Presence, chances are they would have remained largely unaware of the situation. They in fact have a Twitter account and a blog that are managed by a team.

Rather than ignore the situation, the TSA Blog Team responded with their own blog post. Embedded in the post is a closed circuit camera recording that shows Nicole White and her son entering the TSA security line at 10:55am on October 15, entering the plastic enclosed holding area at 11:02 before being escorted by a female TSA Agent at 11:04 to a screening area, and then being screened by hand in the screening area before leaving there at 11:10am. Both the mother and the child are visible during the entire recording and is directly contrary to the account Nicole White originally blogged about.

The TSA Blog Team did not just stop there. They then sent numerous Twitter messages to users who had retweeted the previous story with a link to their own. Thanks to their quick response and their initiative in using Twitter to directly contact those who had retweeted the original story, the TSA avoided a reputation damaging story from festering throughout the weekend.

Best Practices

There are a number of things that First Responder Agencies can learn from this. Here are the Top Five Social Media Best Practices that can be applied from this example:

• The most effective response to negative Social Media is through Social Media – If you haven’t already established a Social Media Presence, then what are you waiting for? Don’t know how? Sign up for our Social Media Bootcamp E-mail Course and we’ll show you how!
• You need to monitor Social Media to protect your reputation – Set up some Google Alerts either through e-mail or an RSS Feedreader to monitor mentions of your Agency
• Use your Social Media Presence – Your Social Media Presence is like a muscle, if you don’t use it then it will never get strong and may very well become dystrophic
• Be responsive in Social Media – Whether it be by e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, or on your own blog be sure to respond to accusations and negative comments the same as you would the positive. Be transparent, even if it includes telling them that you will get back to them… just make sure that you actually follow up on it
• Provide value in your Social Media – Make sure that you are including true factual content and link to it whenever possible

Related articles by Zemanta

• How to Discover the Truth (ariwriter.com)
• The TSA Took Her Child…Or Maybe Not…But the Point… (stirrup-queens.com)
• TSA Releases Video to Clear Itself and Mother Responds (flightwisdom.com)

About the author

Dave Konig wrote 204 articles on this blog.

Dave has been involved in Social Media since 2005 through the current major services and some defunct ones as well. During this time he has been able to hone the craft by testing out the theories of others, creating his own philosophies, and gathering a better understanding of the mediums involved through networking and most importantly actual practice.

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