This was my keynote at Barkworld, a conference for pet owners, businesses, and bloggers about social media.

1. Dealing with Social Media Meanies
Risks and Benefits of Putting Yourself Out There
Carie Lewis
Director of Emerging Media
The Humane Society of the United States
@HumaneSociety U SUCK!

2. My name is Carie,
and I’m a social networking addict.

3. Where We Are
humanesociety.org/connect

4. How we use social media
Twitter for
public relations
Facebook for
program exposureBoth for relationship building,
advocacy, and fundraising.

5. Get ready…
Listen > Participate > Ask
Putting yourself out there in social media
opens the door to feedback, criticism, and
even controversy.
You must be ready to let go of control.

6. Guess what.
You never really had control.
Chances are, people are already
talking about you.
People have been complaining to their
friends, calling customer service, and
posting reviews for years.
Now, its public.

7. “How many of you have ever had another girl say
something mean about you behind your back?”

8. It’s easy to hide behind the computer…
The difference online is that it’s:
• easier
• more accessible
• perceived as anonymous
• an opportunity to be bolder
Twitter is the new call center!

9. What you might encounter
Different opinions
Disagreements
Complaints
Irrelevant / Spam
Malicious / Profanity
Personal attacks
* Unofficial Social Media Meanie Meter

10. What do you do?
• Identify repeat offenders quickly
•Take the opportunity to clear up misinformation
• Pay attention to two things: tone and influence
• Be conversational
• redirect it to something more positive
• know when to back off
• address annoying fans (frequent posting,
irrelevant, self promotion)
• if you’ve taken the time to build community, they
will stick up for you. They’ll be your police.
•Know how to dig through the noise – follow
hashtags, create search columns and follower lists
so you see the most important stuff

11. You cannot take it personal.
• Don’t take it personally or say something you’ll regret later.
• Always be respectful but don’t be afraid to show some
personality.
• Know there will always be people who disagree with you. If
you’re not thick skinned enough, find help.

12. Make your commenting policy known. And fair.
We often get accused of deleting comments and members from the opposition
on our Facebook Fan page.
If you delete something, tell your fans and tell them why.
We only delete posts with profanity, spam, personal attacks, or misinformation.
Simple disagreements are kept to preserve transparency.
Don’t be afraid to use blocking features – common practice.

13. If you find yourself in a Twitterstorm
•Listen to the what — and to the who.
• It's OK to say, "We don't know.“
• Address the crowd where it's gathered.
• Tone matters.
• Explain how you'll address the specific
issue
• Talk about what you’ll do to prevent it from
happening again
People will appreciate transparency
& open communication
It’s not new. Just add social media to it.
Crisis Communications

14. Be proactive!
• Follow people who mention you or a related subject
• Answer all questions, respond to everyone
•Thank everyone, be polite, retweet often
• Invest time in building community so that people stick up for you
• Keep track of your “influencers” and “uberfans”
• Engage frequent retweeters and commenters
• Participate in related discussions, hashtags, memes

15. Why? This could happen to you.

16. The risks outweigh the benefits.
If you don’t create it or participate in it,
someone else will and you will have no say.
You can build an army of brand advocates and friends
that will come to your aide, drive sales,
help you reach your goals.

17. The first step is listening.

18. How to listen
Listen first. Find out where your
audience is most active already.
Then join in. THEN ask.
Build a system that works for you.
Start with Google Alerts and
Tweetbeep emails
Work up to Twitter search,
Tweetdeck, RSS Dashboards,
iPhone apps

19. What you should do right now
Set Google Alerts and
Tweetbeep to your
email for your name,
your blog or website
name, business name,
etc.
Subscribe to your
competition’s blog feed,
Facebook fan page,
follow on Twitter

20. What you should do right now
Start a “uberfan” list of frequent
commenters on your blog or
Facebook, people who use
Twitter hashtags and @ reply
often, and if you’re a nonprofit,
stalk the Facebook Causes
leaderboard.
Always moderate comments
and have notifications when
available.

21. And now… a word on privacy.
Anonymity on the internet
is a myth.
Know the privacy rules.
Check your personal
privacy settings
Never post something
you wouldn’t want your
mother or boss to see!

22. Final thought: social media is STRESSFUL.
.
“If you’re working for the weekends, your s*it is BROKE.
Do what you LOVE!” -@garyvee #sxsw

23. Thank you!
Carie Lewis
Director of Emerging Media
The Humane Society of the United States
Email: clewis@humanesociety.org
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/carielewis
Twitter: @cariegrls
HSUS Networks: humanesociety.org/connect