During the past couple of months, there has been several examples in the social media world of rogue tweets. First Kenneth Cole sent out a controversial tweet that used the unrest in Egypt to promote his new spring line. The tweet, sent out by Mr. Cole personally, stated:
Hours later the tweet was deleted, and Mr. Cole personally issued an apology on his label’s Facebook page. His apology did not seem to appease many from condemning Kenneth Cole on Facebook and Twitter. This did not stop new followers to @KennethCole. According to the Associated Press, an additional 3,000 people started following the label after the insensitive tweet.
Kenneth Cole’s tweet was a case of bad judgement, but the Red Cross tweet was an accident. The Twitter account for the Red Cross mistakenly sent out a tweet about #gettngslizzered on Dogfish Head beer. The employee in charge of the account meant to post it on her own Twitter account. The error could have been a disaster, instead the organization acknowledged the mistake, “We’ve deleted the rogue tweet but rest assured the Red is sober and we’ve confiscated the keys.” Their ability to approach the situation with humor made them stand out in this crisis, and resonated with beer-drinking Twitter users who turned the #gettngslizzered hashtag into a fundraising tool for the organization. The employee in this instance was not fired.
However, this was not the fate for the New Media Strategies employee who sent out a tweet on Chrysler’s official Twitter channel. This employee, who had obviously just experienced a frustrating commute, tweeted, “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to fucking drive.” It could be that the person meant to tweet this from a personal account, even so as a PR person you should never insult your client or the client’s city–since Chrysler has a strong partnership with Detroit.
These examples demonstrate that mistakes will happen because real time communications in the social sphere cannot happen without human beings initiating them. However, it demonstrates the importance of understanding how to communicate in this connected age. All communication is increasingly becoming more and more public, and we must be careful about how we represent ourselves and our clients.
