First, Twitter and Instagram are a great way to show people what's happening behind the scenes. If you were watching Rogen's testimony on TV, you assumed there was a full docket of senators behind him. In fact, there were only a few and some even left during Seth's testimony. Seth's wife, Lauren, took a photo of the near-empty room, and Seth tweeted out how Alzheimer's must not be important to senators. One senator even tweeted "Thanks" to Seth, which he immediately tweeted back, asking why he left. While Seth's testimony got lots of media coverage, it was this behind-the-scenes photo and rapid response tweets that kept him in the news for days.
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People follow a company because they are a fan of the brand, and they follow an executive because they feel it creates a direct line to them. While so many CMOs and CEOs are hesitant to use platforms like Twitter and Instagram, Seth's tweet shows that giving followers a "behind-the-curtains" view into a brand or an executive, can do wonders for engagement and loyalty. Instead, most companies don't take that next step and simply push message-approved content. While many companies do create social media campaigns, it's very contrived, and they would be better served creating a year-long commitment to more organic engagement.
Secondly, the CEO of a company can't control every tweet that goes out, as was the case when Comedy Central tweeted out a racist-sounding tweet via a handle that appeared to be Colbert. Colbert, being the comedy genius that he is, did an entire segment on the crisis and then canceled that Twitter handle. Sometimes when things go awry on social media, you have to lick your wounds, be self-deprecating, apologize and move on. Every year there are cases where someone sends an inappropriate tweet on behalf of a company. Many C-suite executives who don't understand how social media works just delete the post and stick their head in the sand, waiting for the crisis to pass. Instead, there are ways to take a negative and turn it into a positive.