Read on Twitter
I've compiled some Rules for Being a Sleeping Giant that I try to follow. I find hope some people find them helpful, but if you don't do everything exactly my way that's cool too.
1. Before you tweet an advertiser, make sure its account is active (a good rough guideline: it’s active if it’s tweeted in the last six months.)
2. Always be polite when reaching out to an advertiser. Remember that a real human being is going to read your tweet.
3. Twitter lets you include four images with your tweet, so use them. Show in your first screenshot that the ad is clearly on the targeted site. The other three should be screenshots of egregious headlines or comments that clearly show they are from the same site.
4. If an advertiser responds to you and says it is pulling its ads, say thanks.
5. If it says it is looking into the matter, say thanks and ask it to follow up with you if it does pull the ads.
5. If it says it is looking into the matter, say thanks and ask it to follow up with you if it does pull the ads.
6. If it says there is nothing it can do because you only saw the ad due to your own search history, say thanks and share a link to instructions for pulling ads from a specific website.
6 cont. (Just because someone has the job of responding to tweets does not mean they understand how online advertising works).
7. If it doesn’t respond at all, keep in mind that it may still pull its ads - quietly, without wanting to make a public statement. Move on and let the advertiser work things out for itself.
7 cont. If you do keep seeing its ads, try again in a few months. A different employee may be monitoring their Twitter by then.
8. Remember that there will be some advertisers whose owners simply don’t care that they are funding bigoted, sexist sites, or are actually proud to do so. If one responds to that effect, say nothing and move on. (It’s happened to me exactly once.)
9. There will be stretches when you get no responses, and days when you will get several in a row. Don’t blow either circumstance out of proportion.
10. Never reply to abusive comments. Not even if you enjoy that kind of thing. Every moment you spend arguing with someone who’s just there to bait you is a moment you might have spent looking for another advertiser.
11. Follow your fellow Giants and retweet their tweets to advertisers.
12. Always include Sleeping Giants (or the equivalent Twitter account for the country an advertiser is based in) in your tweets.
12. Always include Sleeping Giants (or the equivalent Twitter account for the country an advertiser is based in) in your tweets.
13. Don’t focus on how things might turn out months or years in the future. Focus on the immediate task: reaching out to the next advertiser. And then the one after that.
14. Remember that this could all go away in an instant: Twitter can permanently suspend any account, including yours, for any reason or no reason. Keep up the good work, but don’t grow too attached to your identity as a Giant (or anything else in this world).
