I T was 25 years ago in a county far, far away when I first began my career in journalism, the worst feedback you could have got in response to an article would have been a shirty letter from a local

pensioner. A friend of mine, working on a rival local paper at the

time, was desperate for some ‘fillers’ one day – the small paragraphs dispersed through the paper between the main articles. After exhausting the press release pile (and without such things as Google in that era) he resorted to fiction and created, from his own imagination, a local knitting circle. He then wrote a few lines saying how successful the last meeting of this fictitious knitting group had been. By the end of the week after the paper was published he had received ten letters from keen knitters all asking for more information on how they might go about joining the knitting club. He subsequently had to do a follow up article announcing the unexpected closure of the group. Ten letters had quite an impact. These days a misplaced Tweet can have far greater impact.

Before agreeing to write this column I gave a considerable amount of time to thinking about the effect social media might have on my life if I stepped into the spotlight with my views.

Jon Ronson’s latest book ‘So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed’ is testament to the fact that we are all vulnerable to the dark side of social media these days if we choose to embrace the medium and air our views in public. He tells

of many cases where people’s lives have been ruined and even their mental health affected by one simple, misjudged tweet.

Celebrities are constantly been harassed by ‘trolls’ bombarding them with all types of random views. Alex Brooker, star of The Last Leg comedy show, tells of how his despair at harassment from a ‘Breaking Bad’ obsessed follower pushed him to the last resort. Brief scrutiny of Wikipedia gave him all the ammunition he needed for retaliation. In 140 characters he tweeted at the UK-based troll the ending to his favourite American serial which had not yet aired in the UK. Needless to say, that Twitter relationship didn’t end happily.

I have already had a slight taste of the power of the Twittersphere. Teasing a certain actor one evening at a charity event, I pretended to take a photo of him and his partner but, instead, turned the camera on myself. In a jovial retort he Tweeted the less-than-flattering photo of me to his 588,000 followers. Every now and then it gets retweeted by a Japanese Harry Potter fan. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Be kind on Twitter to new columnists this week. The Social Media spotlight could turn on you...

final wordTHE

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Follow Jane Dyer on Twitter @marketingjdmarketingjd.co.uk

JANE’S ADDICTION

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