Well, I’m no expert, but here are a few things of note, to add to the mix:

1) Andrews’ followers are now up around 1,700 — controversy generated 70% increase. (Not surprising but too bad.)

2) Looking through his tweetstream, you get the sense there’s a lot of hype (he is constantly promoting this or that) but little “there” there.

3) I don’t know how junior or senior he actually is, but he is clearly from the “younger set.” Kids today.

All in all, I think Andrews got tripped up by the temptation of immediacy. I wrote about that here some time ago, in another context. I bet he wishes he could have untweeted on the fly. (I do give him some credit that he let the tweet stand.)

Clearly, Mr. “Ketchum PR Man” wasn’t having a good day as either a social media expert, or as a PR expert. I think there’s important fact that’s being left out of this story. Either he was a twenty-something who’d been hired for his social media savvy, was clueless about PR, but was being schlepped to the meeting to illustrate Ketchums SM cred. (the way an agency I worked for many years ago, asked the only two black employees at the company – the HR guy and a very jr. account person – to sit in on a new business meeting to a company w/an African American CEO), or it was a PR guy who had just completed a crash course in SM and hadn’t yet gotten his sea legs.

Either way, totally lame.

My brother Rob always attends the big annual internet retailers conference, and last year there were several seminars about social networking. He decided it was time that Lifetime Mothers had a social network presence, and he hired me to create one. He hooked me up with online recordings of the seminars.

OMG! <– childish social-network speak > Most of the speakers were actually pretty clueless about the way Facebook and MySpace are used. It's like they didn't actually use FB or MS personally, much less for business, although they certainly sounded young enough that unfamiliarity with these two giants is weird.

The one helpful speaker was from… hmmmm…. maybe he wasn’t so successful, because I can’t remember which giant corporation employs him. Anyway, his company’s social networking endeavors are hugely popular and hopefully increase the company’s bottom line. But Rob doesn’t trust his advice! I’m betting that there are lots of business owners like Rob, who has never used social networking, whose friends don’t even spend much time e-mailing stuff to each other, who are very concerned that social networking might negatively impact their companies’ image.

When I was in college, I was the managing editor for the academic psychology journal “Omega: Journal of Death and Dying.” The founder and editor, Dr. Robert Kastenbaum, said that he was amazed when, shortly after founding the journal, everyone started to call him an “expert” in the field of dying. He said, “I’m not an expert; I gather information from experts!” But his name because associated with the subject, and over the years, I think everyone would agree that he became an expert. You can imagine how he felt at first, however.

Now if only my brother would consider me and expert and give my social networking plan a try!