Twitter and other social media can provide instant information and success — and create equally fast problems.
That's a summary — in less than the 140 maximum characters available in a tweet — of the message that some of Pittsburgh's social media personalities and business and organization representatives offered Monday to a packed house at Left Field Event Space on Federal Street across from PNC Park.
The Social Media Day Pittsburgh event, or #SMDayPgh, is one of hundreds of “meetups” held annually nationwide on June 30 to celebrate and discuss social media. Started in 2010 by Mashable, the free by RSVP local event was sponsored by Smith Brothers Agency (@SmithBrosAgency), the Pittsburgh Advertising Federation and the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.
Keynote speaker Constantin James, a senior account executive at Twitter (@conjames) from the Los Angeles area, presented numerous examples of the power of Twitter's distribution for immediate information and communication. He cited as the most current example the millions of people currently following and commenting on the 2014 World Cup competition.
Vine videos of some great shots or controversial plays are frequently posted to Twitter and various online platforms by individuals before ESPN makes the replays available, he noted.
When Uruguay's Luis Suarez bit Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini during their match last week, James pointed out how people took to Twitter and other social media to comment. (Suarez eventually offered an apology and Chiellini replied — on Twitter — accepting, saying he felt the nine-match suspension was too harsh.)
In California, James pointed out, some people immediately tweet on their smartphones news about feeling earthquake tremors before the tremors even hit others. He showed on a projector screen a screen shot of one of Jimmy Fallon's tweets in which the late-night host joked after feeling a tremor: “Where's my phone?”
James' presentation featured short videos, including one of Today show personnel talking about how important social media platforms have become as part of their daily dissemination of news and information. Another showed actor Patrick Stewart discussing how his Twitter account (@SirPatStew) offered him a chance to promote a play he was acting in and let people know about his funny side. (A couple videos contained some well-placed comments from James' boss, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo.)
Several successful Twitter campaigns were highlighted by James, including one by former Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis when he took over the #Pittsburgh @Pirates Twitter account for a day and used the hashtag #BusTakeover. Despite major World Cup games, James said, The Bus' hashtag was among the top trenders nationally.
James also used screenshots to show how some companies successfully use Twitter and social media to pitch their products, sometimes engaging in friendly banter with another social media-conscious brand. Honda, for example, touted the Double Suck power of the vaccuum attachments in its news minivans and its ability to suck up Oreo cookies left by the kiddos. Oreo responded with one of its mega Oreos, showing it stuck in the Honda hose.
Social media like Twitter have become important ways for TV shows and movies to generate viewers and discussion, James said, citing @HouseofCards and @Scandal among the examples. The TV show @midnight is a competition among comedians that includes best responses to a hashtag of the day and is regularly among the nation's top trenders, he said.
Twitter as a utility and public service was touted when James cited local users reporting Pittsburgh pothoes to the city's 311 service and one local user tweeting about water pouring out of an unattended hydrant. Pittsburgh's 311 service immediately responded to the user from its Twitter account (@pgh311) and a crew was sent to deal with the problem.
James also talked about how Starbucks created an app that allows someone to tweet a free coffee certificate to another person. A brief video showed how someone could use Twitter to click on the #AmazonCart hashtag to place an order for diapers or something else they want in their cart to order something and pay for it later.
In response to an audience question about whether Twitter may someday go from distribution of content to a major creator of content, James said the firm began last October taking a “media forward” approach. The effort includes making it easier for people to see photos and watch Vine videos with one click, he said.
James' presentation focused almost exclusively on the successes of Twitter, steering clear of negatives such as concerns about ISIS and other militant groups using the social media to communicate and disseminate their message.
The best examples of good and bad that can come from Twitter and other social media came from the 11 Pittsburgh speakers, who each got about five minutes to share their stories.
Virginia Montanez, now @JanePitt on Twitter, authors a Pittsburgh blog called thatschurch.com and writes a column for Pittsburgh Magazine. Montanez said she was never looking for social media fame when she first started tweeting under the handle @PittGirl. She was working at a nonprofit and preferred her anonymous status. She said she is hearing impaired, shy, introverted and the socially awkward mom of two.
But she was eventually outed on Twitter and accidentally helped out herself on Facebook. She lost her job when her identity became known as the woman who had been taking on former Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, several council members, news anchors, and PETA and generating some 4 million hits.
Montanez said she was able to use her notoriety and social media skills to the column gig and for something bigger: getting water sent to Haiti after the hurricane there and later helping to bring 54 Haitian children to Pittsburgh to live.
“You can have that power, too,” she told the audience.
Jill Steiner of Wigle Whiskey (@WigleWhiskey), Pittsburgh's first whiskey distillery since Prohibition, said the business has been able to use social media to gain notoriety and become a part of the Pittsburgh community. The 2½-year-old distillery regularly uses social media to announce labeling parties where volunteers gather to help put lables on their bottles.
Like Montanez, Megan Lindsey of the @Franktuary gourmet hot dog shops in Lawrenceville and Downtown and a food truck, said she also is somewhat shy and didn't even have a Facebook account when the business started. Their big break on social media came when the Downtown restaurant was one of only a handful to remain open during the G-20 summit. The business became a sort of “guerilla news outpost,” she said, taking and posting to social media pictures of the chaos going on outside their business.
Lindsey said she hopes social media will help push for more food trucks in Pittsburgh.
Some of the biggest laughs of the event were generated by Heather Starr Fiedler, who started a blog called Pittsburgh Mom while she was on maternity leave after the birth of a child. Fiedler, who teaches social media as an assistant professor at Point Park University's journalim program and is on Twitter @PittsburghMom, said the best advice she could give someone starting out is “know your truth and stand by your truth.”
Starr Fiedler expected to take a lot of heat when she decided to write on her blog about how she had contacted a therapist to help her deal with difficulties with a son. She said she wrote the “Life with Ben” blog piece hoping people might have suggestions to help her, but fully expected to get backlash because she had established herself as go-to mother with advice for others.
To her surprise, Starr Fiedler said, the response was overwhelmingly positive. She heard from therapists who congratulated her for seeking help, other mothers who had done so, and from those who had been hesitating to do so until they read her blog.
It was another blog column written in jest about her husband's poor photography skills that created a surprise backlash, Starr Fiedler said. After he had missed getting pictures of her children and her crossing the finish line in a running event, she wrote “Public Displays of Hollering.”
“We all yell at our husbands,” she told the crowd, a majority of whom were women, “and most of the time they deserve it.”
The backlash over the blog column was heavy, Starr Fiedler said. “I got slammed by the public” as a terrible person, wife and mother, she said.
Later, she said, the family went on a three-week vacation. As a goodwill gesture over the picture-taking flap, she handed the camera to her husband and asked him to get a picture of her and their two children near a waterfall. Starr Fiedler said her husband took the picture, looked at it in the frame and assured her he had gotten a great photo.
Starr Fiedler showed the picture to the audience, which roared with laughter: A large leaf blocked her face as she held the hands of the two children. She said she posted the picture on the blog to show her critics that she stands by the truth.
Sarah Sudar, one of four female friends in their 20s, told how the group liked to go out to eat and started blogging @eatPGH five years ago, offering their reviews of Pittsburgh area restaurants. None had any culinary experience but their timing was good, riding a wave of new restaurants hitting the Pittsburgh area to give 20-somethings with disposal incomes advice on which ones to try or skip. It has now become a small business in which they take reservations for special brunches progressive lunches and dinners and more. The group also writes a weekly retaurant review column for the Tribune-Review.
Adam Golumb, a social media expert for Giant Eagle (@GiantEagle) reported how the 500-store chain is phasing in twitter accounts for each of its stores because each store is considered by the people who shop there as “their store.” Having that many stories to tweet out events to from one location would be impractical, he said, so the chain has started working with a group of employees at 10 stores who submit tweets and photos to corporate for approval and posting.
Dan Rugh of Commonwealth Press (@cwpress), a T-shirt print shop on the South Side with Pittsburgh-centric designs, talked about how he used social media to raise funds for repair of a front window after a brick was thrown through it and gave the extra money to charity. He also told how a computer glitch for an event promoted on social media nearly cost him his house, which he mortgaged against to raise money for a three-hour cruise for 350 aboard the Gateway Clipper fleet to help Pittsburgh Craft Brewery promote itself along with other area craft brewers. A glitch and two server collapses resulted in selling twice as many tickets as they had room.
Fortunately, he said, the Gateway Clipper fleet worked with him and they provided two sessions to satisfy demand of some unhappy folks who thought they would be left out. They have since held another successful cruise and plan another in October.
Others who spoke about their social media experiences were: Rachel Carlson of @YelpPittsburgh; Christopher Whitlatch of the Pittsburgh Foundation Day of Giving (@PittsburghFdn); Laura Forester on behalf of @primantibros; and WPXI's Scott Harbaugh (@WPXIScott).
Food and beverages were provided for the event by many of the participating organizations. An after-party was held at the Beer Market with live music and a cash bar.
Jim Wilhelm is investigative editor for Trib Total Media. Contact him at 412-320-7894, jwilhelm@tribweb.com or on Twitter @BreakingNewzman.
