Social Media Metrics

Want to know what is a complete crock of shit?

This is: Check it out. This evening I tweeted about the dinner I made at home, made a rough comparison to one of my favourite restaurants in New York and left it.

A few minutes later some scanning software picked up on the name Bar Pitti (I didn't hashtag it), retweeted my tweet on their restaurant guide account, and that tweet in turn was published on the restaurant guide actual website under the guise of some kind of "top tweet" relating to the restaurant. Mine's the middle one.

Now this is quite retarded. I didn't give permission for my tweet to appear on a foodie website, and I'm quite sure the restaurant doesn't want to know that I think I make better linguine (and I don't - it's literary license).

Besides my personal issues with unauthorised use, bla bla, I shudder to think what other problems like this are happening every second, wasting readers' time, creating neutral to negative publicity for the businesses or people concerned - but also, happening across industries or on far more important matters or in more sensitive situations.

I know this happens because someone sold a gullible, marketing someone a product that involves keyword scanning and retweeting and all the metrics they could possibly hope for. But guess what? I don't care. This social media measurement idea has really reached quite a low. And until the people paying for rubbish metrics wake up (most companies) we will forever be a second-rate, "it's not rocket science" industry.