NTEN Case Study in Listening: What's the NTC Worth?

Submitted by Holly on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 1:53pm
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Flickr Photo: mil8Flickr Photo: mil8One of the downsides of social media is that absolutely anyONE can say absolutely anyTHING at any time about you or your organization. And they will.

I've always been of the mind that people are going to talk about you anyway, so you might as well use the tools that let you take part in the conversation. Then it happened to us -- and my "get over it" stance feels a little less easy.

I'm kind of mad at social media, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Here's what happened:

I spent most of Tuesday on a plane, so I wasn't monitoring Twitter as closely as I usually do. When I got into the office on Wednesday, I saw that someone had tweeted, and several others then re-tweeted, this message:

I have a lot of arguments I want to make with these folks:

  • First of all, it's not even factually correct. In 2008, the lowest SXSWi badge price was $325, just $24 less than our lowest price. 
  • Second, it's kind of nasty -- especially given that it's not, you know, true.  
  • Finally, SXSWi and the NTC are not even close to the same thing. SXSWi is underwritten by much more sponsorship money. Plus, the scale is different. And they don't feed you anything (while we provide 5 meals).

But you can't really boil that down into 140 characters, so I focused on the fact part. I responded to the originator and the re-tweeters with this message:

Then I waited. I don't know why, but I really expected at least ONE of them would want to follow up. But they didn't. So, while I'm glad I heard the tweets and was able to respond, I feel unresolved.

I really want those folks to tell me I'm right. Is there a social media service for that?

The analytical part of me thinks I've done all I can do, and the damage probably wasn't horrible. We are nearing capacity for the conference, after all.

But the emotional part of me is still unhappy, because it feels like a personal attack. That's the funny thing about social media: it IS personal.

There's really no way around this, is there? We're all just going to have to grow thicker skin.

How would you have responded?