It all started with this one tweet….
All your tweets using #Fight4MSU will be shown on the video board tonight, so tweet away!
— MSU Football (@HailStateFB) October 24, 2013
Seems pretty innocent, right? I think it’s great that Mississippi State was trying to harness the power of social media to rally fans during a Thursday night showdown. I like their idea. Fan-generated content is a great way to get fans engaged. Everyone likes showing up on the video board and feeling like they’re a part of something.
It didn’t take long after MSU’s tweet for their hashtag to get hijacked though. People started having a field day. Why? Because of one simple word in their tweet…
ALL.
When MSU promised that ALL tweets were going to appear on the video board (whether they were or not), trolls saw it as the perfect opportunity to interject into the conversation. This is an easy mistake to make. I can put myself in their shoes and empathize. Still, it’s an important and simple reminder for us all:
Craft your tweets with care.
One word, one misspelling, one mistake, etc. can derail your message. #Fight4MSU might have been hijacked even without the word “all”, but it’s better to play it on the safe side. You never want to setup fans, trolls, and the Twitter world for the perfect hijack. Craft your tweets wisely. See if they can be taken out of context. Read, re-read and re-read.
My last disclaimer is this: If you’re planning a major campaign around a hashtag (where you can’t control the conversation), please have some kind of backup plan in case things don’t go as you expected.
