Deveny as an influencer

This morning it was announced that the Australian newspaper The Age has sacked a columnist, the comedian Catherine Deveny, because of her Tweets during the Logies awards (Australian TV awards). I don't know this comedian; I don't read her column and don't follow her on Twitter; so I am definitely not in the position of judging anybody here. The tweets were quite tasteless, but judging by the nature of the tweets, it can't possibly be the first provocative words by Deveny. In fact, she must quite certainly have been chosen to write columns in The Age because of her humor (appreciated or not).

Another reason to believe that The Age wanted to be connected to Deveny is that she was named one of the 100 most influential people in Melbourne by The Age Melbourne Magazine in 2007. So they have decided to use Deveny to reach out to people that they are interested in. They bought in on Deveny as an influencer. For business reasons, of course. So, when the "business deal" turns out to their disadvantage Deveny stands alone. 



I don't say that The Age has the responsibility to keep Deveny. The newspaper probably did the only thing that they could have done to keep a certain political correctness. But the reality is that The Age let their band partly depend on a specific person, and the question is if political correctness has a place in social media… Does it?

I think that this whole story reveals how companies and organizations want to embrace social media because social media are so exciting, cheap and hyped: but they haven't got a strategy. Even if in this case Deveny was a columnist, she came with a packet (strong interpersonal ties) that must have been very promising for The Age. The worst case scenario for The Age now, is that Deveny's whole twitter community will turn against The Age and spread the word. The worst case scenario for Deveny is that the public opinion judge her because she brought her Tweets into a world that is supposed to be political correct and tasteful.

Yesterday I wrote about influencers in general. Influencers are very important, whether they are inside or outside the organisation. But creating a social media strategy, or as above, entering a collaboration with a connected influencer, must come with a great consciousness about the social media effect, a knowledge about the influencers network and the nature of different social media.

It is always a risk to connect individuals to a brand, but companies should be aware of that, and social media influencers have to ask on whose backyard they are playing.