Social Media Etiquette

[jeffster]

So I'm looking for a group opinion here.

The content of the tweet is not terribly relevant, I am frustrated with the city's plans on Union St. I tweeted my remarks and response, since I find I do not get any useful response by engaging with staff (and this is reinforced in my mind by staff's mediocre actual response). Therefore, I wish to publish a message publicly, and directly at council and other interested folks locally.

As a result I tweeted my objections publicly to council and a few others, cycle_wr and relevantly, a city staff member, who AFAIK is not involved in the project, but who is involved in active transportation in the city. I have met this person in person on numerous occasions, but who I might refer to as an acquaintance--I don't know them well. This tweet went out a few weeks ago, and today I retweeted myself because Brian Doucet raise Union St. again. @citywaterloo:

Clearly there is grey area, I am not sure based on how much I know this person, etc. etc. but I found it a very strange request, and the fact that it came weeks later (only after I retweeted myself) really looks bad on them. I have no idea if I have actually offended the city staff person in question (I won't name them), but this felt to me like either an overzealous response by the corporate account, or a very strange way of someone letting me know they don't want to engage (which can be accomplished with the block option).

It's worth noting also that I have had ZERO engagement from either the city's corporate social media or ANY city councillors on this item, in fact the ONLY contact I've had from the city is to complain that I @tt someone in our community who happens to also be a city staff member. I find it pretty tone deaf.

To address why Waterloo was slow to address this: they probably have a lot of tweets directed at them, and they likely don't read every tweet.

As for addressing staff members directly in conjunction with their employers handle, not cool. It is different if you are tweeting to certain councillors, as they are elected individuals and it comes with the territory. The issue is that it comes across that you and the staffer have talked extensively, and adding their handle to a twitter conversation confirms this, and it ends up getting the staffer in trouble with management, and in turn, it follows a chain. I know this because I work for one of the cities.

I can't talk about the details of what you want, what council is expecting to happen, and what staffers are actually proposing, but you will find a better response by PM'ing everyone involved, if possible, or emailing directly, rather than publicly exposing your grievances.

Having said that, did you delete your original tweet? Because I only see the corporation and two councillors named. To me, that's fair game and you did nothing wrong.