I’m originally from Philadelphia, so when I see the city get some media attention, I pay attention too. However, it’s too bad that a big story from there is about a councilman who wasted thousands of dollars of taxpayer money on his social media campaign. I found out about what he did in the article, “Socially Inept: Councilman Kenney pays private firm 29G to tweet for him” which also says that he was the only councilman to pay someone to tweet for him.Councilman Kenney doesn’t want to take the time to understand Twitter, which is why he hired a company to do it, but what is more appalling is that Kenney is already paying a communications consultant who doesn’t know how to use Twitter either. Twitter is a basic communications tool that is easy to use, so it obviously shows that his communications consultant doesn’t know what modern communications is. Also, the company that he hired to do the tweets sometimes just types what he tells them, or they put out misinformation. It’s not only a waste of money, but money badly spent on people who don’t know what they’re doing or how to communicate with their client.
The point of social media is that even though you can get help with it from an outside consultant, you can’t buy your reputation through your social media efforts. There has to be a sincerity in what you do which includes what you say and how you’re saying it. Councilman Kenney ended up buying a lot of negative buzz through the mistakes he made, and it’s obviously reflected badly on his communications staff as well. It’s best to be responsible and know who you’re dealing with when it comes to your publicity efforts.