Click-to-Tweet Code for Promoting Your Content or Cause

Social share buttons enable readers to easily share your blog posts to their friends and followers. You can install a social sharing plugin or module for your WordPress, Drupal, or other content management system (CMS) that will make it easy to include this functionality on every page of your website. Three popular social sharing services with […]

The post Click-to-Tweet Code for Promoting Your Content or Cause appeared first on John Janney.

Shareaholic Social Sharing Buttons

But is that the only option you should give your readers? What about a click-to-tweet option?

When a reader shares your content through a social sharing button, the service posts the title and link of the article. While we should always try to make page titles enticing and meaningful, we should also find a balance that will satisfy search engine optimization (SEO) best practices. This typically involves using the article’s primary keyword phrase at the beginning of the page title and limiting the page title to no more than 70 characters. Such a balance can be challenging if you are targeting long tail keywords.

That’s where quotable content can come in handy.

Make Quotable Content Sharable

I love reading and sharing content about public relations, digital marketing, and social media. Many of the articles I share include pithy opinions, statistics, or facts from case studies that are more interesting than the page title. When I run across such material, I sometimes copy the snippet of content and paste into my tweets.

Why not make it easy for your readers to do the same?

I found a few plugins for WordPress that will create click-to-tweet links. I chose the Inline Tweet Sharer by Winwar Media because it works well and integrates with Bitly. While this plugin works great for blog posts, I haven’t found an equivalent feature for email marketing systems like iContact, Constant Contact, and MailChimp.

Click-to-Tweet Code

I recently sent an email to promote a social media awareness campaign as part of a coalition effort. The email included three elements that I believe improved its performance compared to other emails sent to the same list of subscribers.

I used the words “2 Tweets to Support [cause]” in the email subject
I included the campaign hashtag in the subject of the email
I included click-to-tweet links in the body of the email with calls to action

We saw a 39.2% increase in open rate and the click rate was the third largest so far this year, surpassed only by a survey request and a video link. We also saw a 211.5% increase in social mentions from subscribers clicking on the click-to-tweet links and sharing our messages on Twitter.

UPDATE: I found a website that makes creating social sharing links super-easy, and it’s free: http://www.sharelinkgenerator.com/

I had no plugin to make the click-to-tweet link, so I learned the code. It’s rather simple, so I’ll share it here:

The first part is the Twitter tweet code: https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=
Enter your text after “?text=”
Replace # with hex code %23
Replace @ with hex code %40
Use other hex codes for special characters, like % or $

For example, if I want to tweet “We saw a 39.2% increase in open rate – by @johnjanney #click2tweet” and include a shortened URL for the article, the code will be:

Click-to-Tweet Code

If you worry about line breaks or spaces breaking your code (which is why I had to use an image in the above example), you can fill in the space between each word with %20. The resulting link will work the same, but will look like this:

<a href=”https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=We%20saw%20a%2039.2%25%20increase%20in%20open%20rate%20-%20by%20%40johnjanney%20http://bit.ly/1neNCXS%20%23click2tweet”>We saw a 39.2% increase in open rate</a>

DIY = Control

While plugins make tasks easy, sometimes you might prefer to have more control. Online content producers balance these trade-offs all the time. Content management systems, website themes, and social sharing plugins rarely satisfy every desire. As a result, public relations, digital marketing, and other online content producers should learn basic HTML and PHP to overcome the limitations imposed by content systems.

ClickToTweet.com

Alternatively, you can use ClickToTweet.com to generate your click-to-tweet code. This service offers up-to five free click-to-tweet links with shortened URL and click tracking services. If you want more than five links, you’ll need to upgrade to the Pro Plan ($4.97 per month or $49.70 per year). You can also include an image with your code, and the service offers a WordPress plugin. Anum Hussain (@anum) at HubSpot wrote an article, How to Generate Click-to-Tweet Links for your Content, that guides you through the process. Here is an example of the final result (1) with and (2) without an image:

Tweet: Click-to-Tweet for Promoting Content & Causes http://ctt.ec/9irb_+ by @johnjanney #click2tweet

What do you think?

Should PR/MarCom professionals know HTML and PHP? Do you use click-to-tweet links in your email marketing? Do you use a click-to-tweet plugin and are you satisfied with it? Have you or will you use ClickToTweet.com? What results have you seen by including a hashtag in your email subjects? Are you integrating your email marketing and social media engagement efforts?

The post Click-to-Tweet Code for Promoting Your Content or Cause appeared first on John Janney.

Vine Videos – 5 Questions You Should Ask Before Using Them in PR

It’s only a matter of time before someone at work asks you how the company can use Vine videos to promote itself. Before venturing into this new video sharing space, you need to considered several issues. Vine is a video sharing website. Unlike YouTube, Vine videos are limited to six seconds. Company co-founder Dom Hoffman […]

The post Vine Videos – 5 Questions You Should Ask Before Using Them in PR appeared first on John Janney.

John Janney’s Vine – Not Much Activity Yet

Vine is a video sharing website. Unlike YouTube, Vine videos are limited to six seconds. Company co-founder Dom Hoffman said that his team settled on the six second limit as an ideal amount of time for everyday users to share brief life moments with friends and family members.

So, Vine was created to make it easy for average smartphone users to capture and share personal moments. Vine videos of your baby’s first steps, dog’s new trick or cousin’s latest skateboard stunt are examples of the site’s intended content. It wasn’t long, however, before corporations saw commercial opportunity in the 40+ million-strong video sharing community.

Are Vine videos a good fit for your PR strategy? Here are five questions to help you decide.

1. Does your brand fit into the Vine culture?

It doesn’t take long to realize that the Vine community is about fun. This is understandable because it’s difficult to make a serious six-second, looping video. In fact, if dramatic Vine videos exist, I haven’t seen them — and I’ve looked. Perhaps a Vine version of the House of Cards Season 2 trailer could be a start.

Six-second Vine videos are ideal for physical comedy, one-liners and routines with a quick setup and punchline. One of the key elements in humor is surprise, and it only takes a few seconds to deliver a humorous twist.

Drama often requires more time to foster the emotional investment required for producing a somber connection with audiences. While it is possible to tell a dramatic story in six seconds, the Vine community culture isn’t likely the right place to share that story.

Vine videos are usually funny. Your brand should also convey levity to thrive inside the Vine community. Otherwise, consider sticking with Instagram, YouTube or Vimeo for your video storytelling needs.

Related questions to ask include: Are your audience members using Vine? Are Vine users already talking about your brand or anything related to it?

2. How do Vine videos fit into your larger strategy?

As with any corporate communication, do not publish Vine videos in isolation. Maintaining a consistent message is essential for properly managing your brand. You can have more than one voice, but those voices should be coordinated.

Many public relations executives provide their staff with social media accounts for communicating with the organization’s audiences. These staff-driven channels are great for building relationships. Openly sharing workplace life and other interesting tidbits online also helps humanize an otherwise faceless corporation.

The multi-staff approach, however, should never be implemented without planning, training and overview. This requires an open, cooperative corporate culture and systems that keep everyone on the same page. Staff on all levels should understand and respect the social media communications plan and how it fits into the organization’s brand message.

Establish the plan, communicate it to the staff and seek feedback. Provide examples of on-message and off-message communications. Give your staff the tools and training they need to succeed in adding some personality to the corporate brand.

3. How do you tell your story in 6 seconds?

Tim Baker of MWW Group recently said that “Anyone [who] thinks you can’t tell a story in six seconds just isn’t trying hard enough.” He warned, however, to “make sure your video tells a story.”

Brevity requires as much planning as creativity. In fact, videographers report that each minute of video requires between 2 and 17 hours of production. Sure, videos between family members don’t require such forethought, but keeping your communications consistent with your brand message does.

Don’t Vine for Vine’s sake. If a Vine video is sent from a corporate channel, it is an official communication no different than a brochure, press release or banner ad. Plan each Vine. Plan a series of Vines. Incorporate the Vine video series into your global communications strategy. And definitely make sure your Vine videos are telling your brand’s story.

4. Are your Vine videos building relationships?

From what I’ve observed on Vine, many communicators are failing to engage with the Vine community. The site is full of promotional animations, cute video spots and one-liners. But I rarely see calls to engage in the video content.

Twitter has its 140-character limit. Vine, which is owned by Twitter, has its six-second video limit. As a video microblog, your engagement activities can borrow from successful YouTube channels and Twitter profiles.

Building relationships requires two-way communication. Don’t just push your message. Engage in dialog. Incorporate a call-to-action or call-to-engagement. If you can’t fit it into the video content, include your call in the Vine description.

Twitter enables you to build conversations by tagging users in tweets. You can also tag users in Vine posts. So, if a user asks a question in the comments of one of your Vine videos, why not answer it with a Vine and tag the user?

You can find many different opportunities to engage with audience members. You can use hashtags, request fulfillment, mentions, behind the scenes footage, product demos and creative loops. Just make sure each communication adds value and never spam.

5. Is shorter better?

Even if you can tell a story in six seconds, should you? Shorter may flex our creative muscles, but it doesn’t always produce better or appropriate communications. Just because a communications channel exists does not mean we must use it. A good rule for social media outreach is to research and select channels that fit your brand and then excel within that limited selection.

This question reminds me of when White Stripes submitted its one-note concert to the Guinness World Records for the shortest concert of all time. A spokesperson from GWR responded in part by explaining that the “nature of competing to make something the ‘shortest’ by its very nature trivializes the activity being carried out.” Since the White Stripes incident, the publication no longer includes “shortest” categories.

A Great Example

https://vine.co/Lowes

A Clever Example: An Interactive Vine

https://vine.co/dunkindonuts

What do you think?

I have more thoughts on this subject, like how Vines of Post-It notes and other text-based messages are a tragic waste of the medium. But I would like to hear from you. Do you think organizations with serious or dramatic brands (charities, advocacy groups, funeral homes. etc.) can flourish on Vine?

Is shorter better? How short is too short? How long is long enough? Do you think communications departments should provide Vine planning templates for staff members? What are your suggestions for using Vine videos in a public relations strategy?

The post Vine Videos – 5 Questions You Should Ask Before Using Them in PR appeared first on John Janney.

HootSuite vs Rignite vs Sprout Social vs Radian6 – Social Media Management Systems Compared

How do the leading social media management platforms compare for small and medium organizations trying to get a better handle on social media engagement? I recently conducted a comparative analysis on four social media management platforms in preparation for getting my organization more engaged with its online communities. We’ve been using HootSuite for about a […]

The post HootSuite vs Rignite vs Sprout Social vs Radian6 – Social Media Management Systems Compared appeared first on John Janney.

How do the leading social media management platforms compare for small and medium organizations trying to get a better handle on social media engagement?

I recently conducted a comparative analysis on four social media management platforms in preparation for getting my organization more engaged with its online communities. We’ve been using HootSuite for about a year, but I felt the interface and lack of included analytics were holding us back.

I knew about Sprout Social and Radian6, but found Rignite through a Facebook ad. With these options in mind, I signed up for trial accounts and spoke with representatives from each company. While I found Sprout Social to be the best option, I hope my observations and impressions about each service will prove helpful.

HootSuite

The biggest advantage HootSuite has over competitors is that it offers a free version of its service. This lowers the entry barrier for startups, small organizations and individuals. However, there is little benefit beyond unified publishing, scheduled messages and basic analytics.

HootSuite Twitter Stream

HootSuite’s interface is clunky. It’s just a series of same-looking streams organized in same-looking tabs. Add too many streams to a tab and you’ll have to scroll horizontally to see them all.

With the exception of a search stream, HootSuite’s streams don’t offer much additional value beyond having all your streams in one place. When I tested the search stream, the keyword phase I used generated too much noise to be valuable – even after putting the phrase in quotes.

HootSuite Ow.ly Click Report

The included analytics are basic, but provide some useful information. HootSuite’s ow.ly URL shortening and click tracking feature can help you determine which messages are resonating with users. However, once you upgrade to Pro and start adding premium modules to your reports, you might as well pay for a Sprout Social subscription.

Speaking of HootSuite’s premium services, the company charges a low $8.99 fee for the Pro version and then allows users to purchase “points” it can use to pay for premium modules. The advantage to this is that if the user deletes a module, the points are credited back to the account. The disadvantage is that it creates a more complicated service scheme than necessary and quickly brings the price structure out of the competitive zone.

HootSuite Schedule Message

For a free service, HootSuite works. It helps unify up-to five social network accounts under one roof and enables you to schedule posts. The interface is ugly and is geared toward action first, then measure. The reports are basic, but helpful.

I wouldn’t recommend paying for the Pro version unless you need to add more than five profiles without needing premium modules. I also don’t like the nickel-and-dime approach to pricing and the points system is irritating. When I asked the cost of Enterprise, the rep said that it could cost anywhere between $1,000 per year to $1,000 or more per month.

Final impressions: If you just want a free service that enables you to schedule posts to multiple social networks with basic analytics, HootSuite is your choice. If you’re willing to pay for a service, look elsewhere.

Rignite

Rignite is a relatively new kid on the block. I found the service through a Facebook ad and decided to give it a shot. The interface opens into the Monitor tab, which is a step in the right direction. You can add search streams to the Monitor tab to keep track of specific mentions, competitors or other keywords.

Rignite Cases

The focus for Rignite appears to be enabling teams to be responsive to an organization’s audience members. From the Monitor tab, users can assign inbound messages to social media team members for follow-up. When assigned, the message is saved as a “Case,” which feels more like tech support than social engagement.

The Gallery tab is an odd feature. I’m not sure if it is a media repository or if the system posts photos to social media properties when uploaded to the system. When I clicked on the “?” icon, I was prompted to send a message to Rignite. A quick review of the website didn’t produce any insights.

Rignite Analytics are Lacking

Speaking of Rignite analytics, this is currently the service’s greatest deficit. However, one benefit is its message sentiment metric. Rignite places positive, neutral and negative emoticons next to each incoming message and highlights the tone it assumes for the message. What I saw was mostly neutral assignments, but I can click on the appropriate emoticon to correct the assignment. The more emoticons I click to correct tone, the more the system learns.

Final impressions: Rignite is an immature product with a long way to go. Its pricing is between HootSuite (no premium modules) and Sprout Social, ~~but I don’t think the service is ready for paying customers~~ (see update). That being said, it does have a lot of potential and I look forward to seeing where the development team takes the service.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social Interface

Sprout Social opens to a graphically pleasing dashboard of snapshot analytics. The Messages icon lights up green if you have unread messages. Clicking on the Messages icon brings you to Sprout’s unified inbox where messages from different profiles are filtered into one stream. You can configure the stream to include or exclude profiles, message types and keywords you want to monitor.

Small details tell me that Sprout gets it. The service separates the message and reporting features, which highlights the different functions of listening and monitoring. The post scheduling function includes features that enhance usability. For example, when scheduling a post, I can hover over a date on the calendar to see when other posts are scheduled.

Sprout Social Schedule Message

This feature may seem insignificant, but imagine scheduling a post and forgetting whether or not you already scheduled a 2:30 p.m. message on Wednesday. In HootSuite, you’ll have to leave the posting window and navigate its series of clunky streams. Having this information at the tip of your cursor is valuable when trying to juggle numerous scheduled posts. To top it off, you can add a custom post thumbnail from a URL if the system doesn’t find an appropriate image – another feature I did not see in any of the other services.

Sprout’s Feed and Smart Search features seem a little buggy. When I attempted to connect to Feedly, the system automatically produced a stream of social mentions for #MLFA. I couldn’t seem to figure out how to edit the feed. The result was a stream of junk mentions. The Smart Search feature produced similar results, even when placing keyword phrases in quotes. The Discover feature, under which the Smart Search resides, also provides suggestions for people to follow and highlights potential influencers.

Sprout Social Reports

The system offers enough reports to give users valuable insights. I especially like the Twitter Comparison feature. I enter a competitor’s Twitter handle and Sprout will show side-by-side graphs for engagement, influence, followers and mentions. The Team Report gives a picture of each team member’s activities and the Sent Message reports show how well different posts are performing.

Final impressions: The configurable nature of the unified inbox enhances the value of this listening platform. The graphic-rich reports make quick sense out of your metrics. Sprout’s attention to details, such as its advanced post scheduling features, pushes this platform ahead of the pack. Starting at $39 per user per month, the basic package is affordable for most small organizations.

Radian6

My email exchange with Radian6 ended with “prices start out at $12k per year.” The rep did send me an hour-long video demonstration, which I have yet to watch. It appears Radian6 is a big-fish provider. Small orgs need not apply.

UPDATE: 12/02/2013 — I finally watched the Radian6 demonstration. It has an impressive set of features. It provides as wide or granular a view of your social activities as you desire. SalesForce recently purchased it, and it appears to be a good match from what I saw of the interface. I also like the idea of integrating SalesForce with social activities. However, I still see Radian6 as a platform for larger corporations, although the presenter did mention nonprofit discounts.

Your Turn

Have you had similar experiences with these services? What features did you like the most? What do you look for in a social media management system?

The post HootSuite vs Rignite vs Sprout Social vs Radian6 – Social Media Management Systems Compared appeared first on John Janney.

‘F*ck You Brian Stann’: Brandon Vera Not Impressed With the All-American’s UFC Commentary Debut

(Years of being a Marine have trained him to show no emotion. But on the inside, Brian Stann is sobbing into his Pillow Pet. / Photo via MMAWeekly)

Despite being one of the most likable human beings in the history of this ugly sport, former UFC fighter Brian Stann picked up a very high-profile hater over the weekend. Stann handled color-commentary duties for UFC 163, and his analysis of the Phil Davis vs. Lyoto Machida co-main event spurred Brandon Vera to fire some shots on Facebook:

@philmrwonderful super awesome job boss…!!!!! U are the man!!! Fuck you @brianstann learn how to be an unbiased commentator bitch. Don’t ?#?hate? cuz he beat Ur ass too!!!

Vera, of course, is a totally unbiased observer, who just happens to be a longtime training partner of Phil Davis. But hey, that’s the drawback of social media — any asshole with an Internet connection can tell you how to do your job.

As you can imagine, Brian Stann is too classy to respond to Vera’s angry insults, but Vera did make a retraction after he cooled off a bit:

(Years of being a Marine have trained him to show no emotion. But on the inside, Brian Stann is sobbing into his Pillow Pet. / Photo via MMAWeekly)

@philmrwonderful super awesome job boss…!!!!! U are the man!!! Fuck you @brianstann learn how to be an unbiased commentator bitch. Don’t ?#?hate? cuz he beat Ur ass too!!!

As you can imagine, Brian Stann is too classy to respond to Vera’s angry insults, but Vera did make a retraction after he cooled off a bit:

@BrianStann tho my opinion remains the same my choice of words shoulda been better. For my words I apologize.

Vera then went back on Facebook and asked his followers to share some bullshit comparing New York City’s “If You See Something, Say Something” anti-terrorism campaign to Nazi Germany. So from now on, whenever you see an abandoned backpack in a crowded public place, Just Say Fuck It™.

For those of you who watched UFC 163 on Saturday, what did you think of Brian Stann’s performance in the broadcast booth? And was he more or less “biased” than regular color-man Joe Rogan?

Ronda Rousey’s Sandy Hook Conspiracy Tweet Highlights the UFC’s Social Media Problem

(“I drink coconut water because it’s the world’s greatest natural source of electrolytes. Plus, Obama has been putting cyanide in our tap water since March 2010. Open your eyes, people.” Photo via Esther Lin/Showtime)

By George Shunick

One of the more enjoyable aspects of MMA — and the athletes who participate in it – is that even as the sport has grown exponentially in popularity over the past half-decade, the personalities that comprise it have remained extraordinarily candid in their interactions with the general public. It keeps fighters down to earth relative to athletes in other sports — Chris Kluwe excluded — and creates a sense of community between the fans and fighters that is unique to MMA. Of course, every now and then, a fighter (or promoter) will take things a step too far.

Take Ronda Rousey. Just the other day she caught heat for saying that Georges St. Pierre, the most dominant champion in welterweight history and arguably the most complete fighter in the sport, was only famous because he was attractive and Canadian. After the ensuing outcry, Ronda clearly gave the matter a lot of thought and decided to be more conscious of what she said in public forums…and proceeded to tweet an “extremely interesting must watch video” suggesting the Sandy Hook massacre of 20 children and 6 adults in December was the product of a government conspiracy to push anti-gun legislation. Amidst a storm of criticism, she eventually took down the tweet hours later.

Let’s be clear: This is probably the single largest public relations blunder any prominent professional fighter has committed since Quinton “Rampage” Jackson lived up to his nickname. Rousey originally justified it by saying “I just figure asking questions and doing research is more patriotic than blindly accepting what you’re told.” Which is an interesting thing to say, considering she just blindly accepted what a YouTube video — presumably constructed by a reactionary paranoid living in his mom’s basement — told her, despite an overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary.

By George Shunick

I’m not going to bother debunking the delusional, callous and vile assertions of that video here. If you believe that the President ordered an elite team of assassins to kill 20 children or that the incident was entirely fabricated (conspiracy theorists can’t seem to decide which is the case, which shouldn’t be a surprise considering there’s a complete lack of evidence for either), there’s no hope for you. But those are the theories that Rousey is endorsing. She’s not just “asking questions”; by posting that video, she’s implicitly promoting the notion that Sandy Hook is a ploy by a tyrannical government. (While Jon Fitch also posted the same video, he immediately questioned its authenticity and readily acknowledged its fraudulence when confronted with evidence.)

But so what? This a country founded on free speech, right? For all you aspiring constitutional scholars out there in the comments section, that only means the government can’t prevent you from saying anything, and can’t punish you for saying almost anything. It doesn’t mean speech comes without consequences; just ask Miguel Torres. (More on him later.) Rousey has a platform — one she has willingly embraced — as an ambassador for her entire gender within the sport and for the sport itself. Her public statements don’t just reflect on her character or marketability, but on the character and marketability of the institution she represents as well. And she’s failed in that responsibility in a truly despicable manner. This isn’t just a joke in poor taste, this is something that has legitimate, harmful repercussions on people who deserve anything but.

Still, this is the price you pay for the UFC’s social media policy, or lack thereof. See, having fighters speak their minds, unfiltered by any mandatory restrictions, is a positive in the sense of accessibility it creates. But it swiftly becomes a negative when they cross a certain line. The problem is that line isn’t clearly defined. Two years ago, Miguel Torres was fired for tweeting a joke about rape. He was rehired soon after, but the point was clear — the UFC wasn’t going to tolerate any more rape jokes. (Well, unless you’re a former champion of the UFC’s glamour division and a reality TV star.) Torres didn’t heed the message, and was fired last year.

While Torres’s jokes were in bad taste and deservedly criticized, there’s no denying Rousey’s comments are worse. So she’s getting fired, right? At least fined? Of course she’s not; she’s headlining a pay-per-view in a month and she’s the face of women’s MMA. As much as the UFC might profess to care about what its fighters say, when it comes to disciplining them it comes down to what the fighter does for the company. There’s no set of rules or disciplinary actions to be taken in the event of a violation of a public conduct policy because there is no public conduct policy. Not only does this ensure that punishments will be meted out as Dana White — himself no stranger to PR disasters — sees fit, it ensures that these incidents will continue to happen because fighters aren’t given limits on what is acceptable public discourse from the company that could punish them for breaching those non-existent limits.

Obviously, this has to change. The UFC has to institute a clearly-defined personal conduct policy and enumerate the violations and the consequences if it wants to avoid further disasters like this. It’s only fair to the fighters to know what they can and can’t express in public, and it’s only fair that fighters who violate the same policies can be assured of receiving the same punishments. The openness of social media in MMA is a great thing, but there is absolutely nothing positive about Rousey’s recent comments. Are the outrage over this and the lies she’s helped perpetuate really worth finding out that Rousey has — like many athletes and, frankly, people in general — an exceptionally poor grasp of how the world actually works? It’s impossible to see how anyone could argue that.

When we say we have free speech in America, it doesn’t necessarily mean what we often think it means. You don’t have the right to say anything you want, whenever you want. While it’s true the government can’t censor your speech preemptively, you can still be punished in certain instances where society has concluded that the benefits of complete free speech do not outweigh the detriment of certain uses of speech. Shouting “fire!” in a crowded theatre is probably the most well-known example. It’s possible to be sued for libel or slander as well. No one is complaining about this; it’s fairly evident that certain restrictions are logical and morally sound.

But even in something as old as American law, we’re still trying to figure out just how to apply this principle. Perhaps it’s appropriate that as we come to define the consequences of speech in the fledgling medium of the internet, the fledgling sport that has seen its rise coincide with the rise of the World Wide Web must now come to terms with its own speech limitations, most notably within that medium. Instead of libel or death threats, however, the UFC must define a more nebulous set of standards, as much for the benefit of its fighters as for itself. At what point are we willing to sacrifice the access we possess to the fighters? At what point does their right to free speech become abridged? Ultimately, should they take the necessary steps, that will be the UFC’s decision. However, one thing is certain; if Miguel Torres’ offensive jokes were deemed inappropriate, then Ronda Rousey’s latest controversy is definitely beyond the pale.