Last week on The Crisis Show, we talked about the new Twitter Rotation Curation campaign that sweden originally started.
What is a Twitter Rotation Curation?
If you haven’t heard of it, a Rotation Curation is a new type of Twitter campaign aimed at increasing global awareness of a country. A targeted Twitter account gets a new curator each week, and that curator is your average everyday person / citizen of said country.
Sweden was the first to come up with this concept last December, and you can find their Rotation Curation campaign at the Twitter account @sweden, where they give the handle to a new person each week to Tweet out as they please.
Sweden’s goal for the campaign:
- To create awareness of the country
- Relieve common misconceptions
- To build up the region as a hot tourist attraction
Sweden’s Rotation Curation turns risky
Since its launch, Sweden’s Rotation Curation campaign had been running pretty smoothly. They had the occasional curator who talked about masturbation or breast feeding, but what I’ve come to notice is that, though some areas in the rest of the world might find these a taboo subject, Sweden is pretty liberal when it comes to these types of discussions taking place in public.
However, the Rotation Curation campaign showed its potential risk with the 24th curator, a miss Sonja Abrahamson, who decided to stir things up a bit with her questions about “why some people hate Jews so much”.
Take a look at some of the tweets Sonja posted:
*This image was taken from a Mashable post – which is another great read on the subject
Are you shocked? Did you gasp?! Are you thinking that this campaign is much too risky and surely a social media crisis is bound to break out for Sweden?
Such is the question on many peoples’ minds, though Sweden doesn’t seem to be the least bit intimidated or taken aback. In fact, CEO of VisitSweden told Mashable
“No one owns the brand of Sweden more than its people. With this initiative we let them show their Sweden to the world.”
My fellow co-host and friend, Jonathan Bernstein, raises an excellent point:
“What if Sonja, instead of being a little confused in this particular case, had tweeted “I think we should pick up where Hitler left off ” …”
In other words, what if Sonja was not just a little “off her rockers” but a complete and utter psychopath? And it’s a very real and valid point that could potentially open the door to some major risk for the country of Sweden as a whole.
So the question remains: has Sweden really thought this campaign through?
In terms of social media transparency and creativity, this campaign definitely takes the lead. With 69,000+ followers, its proving to be wildly successful since, like a reality show, the world is sitting on the edge of their seats to see what happens next. But as entertaining as it may be, this in no way takes away the true risk factor.
It’s a stunt. It’s an experiment. It’s controversial. It’s catching on as the Netherlands start their own Curation Rotation campaign….
What do you think of this Twitter campaign?
Do you think it’s too risky or just risky enough? I definitely want to hear from you! Share your thoughts with me below!
Author of Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in an Uncertain World, Melissa Agnes is a leading authority on crisis preparedness, reputation management, and brand protection. Agnes is a coveted keynote speaker, commentator, and advisor to some of today’s leading organizations faced with the greatest risks. Learn more about Melissa and her work here.
Very interesting post, Melissa. There are obvious risks to this experiment, balanced by the obvious benefits. By allowing real people to post potentially controversial things, the experiment generates greater interest than if all the posts were moderated by the government’s communications department.
What would happen if someone Tweeted something horribly offensive? Sweden would probably issue a sincere apology and consider revising the “rules” of the experiment.
In American politics, you’ll often see a candidate answer questions from the audience. Despite the best efforts of screeners, oocasionally a questioner will ask an unauthorized question that makes the audience gasp and the politician flinch. The candidate could prevent this by just answering a list of questions read by a moderator, but the result would be a lack of any authentic feeling.
Authenticity is a valuable commodity in the world of social media. Authenticity brings with it risk. It’s our job to balance costs and benefits, risk and reward.
Looking forward to your next post. Have an authentic day,
Hi Chris,
Authenticity and transparency go a long way today, absolutely – it’s become so critical that there’s no other way.
As much as I love the idea of the Twitter Rotation Curation campaign and the trust Sweden puts in their people, I do know that there’s a TON of risk that comes with it. Offensive Tweets were tweeted and Sweden shrugged them off – which says one of two things: a) their culture is much more laid back than many parts of the world and they trust their campaign and their citizens explicitly; or b) they haven’t fully analyzed the potential risk with this campaign. No apology was issued (which I don’t think is necessarily a bad thing in this case) and no stricter rules or guidelines were set.
I find this case so interesting and I look forward to continuing to follow the story to see how the campaign fairs. Honestly, I think it’s real enough that it will fair quite nicely!
Thanks for the great comment, Chris!