Small Business | Forum « How do you recover from a social media fail? (TOTW: 7/22/2012)

How do you recover from a social media fail? (TOTW: 7/22/2012) (9 posts)

Topic tags: fail, social media, totw

Rich Brooks said
9 months, 4 weeks ago:
The other day, in the wake of the deadly shootings in Aurora, Colorado, a popular blog and Twitter account tweeted out that they noticed #Aurora was trending, and it must be because of their Kim Kardasian Aurora dress.
Followed by a winky emoticon.
Ouch.
It turns out the company in question had outsourced their social media overseas and the company had jumped on the trending topics as a way of increasing visibility.
Personally, I’ve never gotten that particular tactic.
In any case, they “apologized” over four tweets once they realized what had happened, and then went back to pushing product.
Is an apology and then silence the way to fix a social media faux pas?
Have you ever made a mistake in social media? How did you address it?
What should companies–both big and small–do after a social media #fail?
@rich-brooks | # | Top
Michael Pingree said
9 months, 4 weeks ago:
In this case, the owner of the company should have apologized and offered their plan of action to try and ensure this doesn’t happen again and then they should have SHUT UP.
This was not the time for business as usual.
@michaelpingree | # | Top
Dawn Chitwood said
9 months, 4 weeks ago:
Yikes! I had to conduct a Google search to find out more (clearly what the offending boutique should have done.) Modern social media marketing can be a major liability in the sense that in order to stay current, really current, you have to be quick. But the lesson learned in this instance is that we should have a basic understanding of what starts the fires we fan before they come back to burn us. I have thankfully not committed a faux pas of this degree. Unfortunately, after something like this happens what can you do, but apologize and move forward.
@dawnchitwoodrivers | # | Top
Kristy C. Cartier said
9 months, 4 weeks ago:
@rich-brooks The NRA got too with one of their scheduled tweets: http://articles.cnn.com/2012-07-20/tech/tech_social-media_nra-tweet-shooting_1_tweet-twitter-account-twitter-users
And I believe that they handled it fine once they were notified of the tweet. I agree with @michaelpingree about apologizing and then slowly getting back to business (with other topics).
Or sometimes you can use other platforms: Facebook Engineer Apologies on Reddit which is being used as a PR example done right.
Great question!
@kc_kreative | # | Top
Dea Irby said
9 months, 4 weeks ago:
ooooooohhh noooo! that’s terrible… finding a balance is always hard (act fast-be informed) do you know how this action affected them? great question, Rich. @rich-brooks
@deairby | # | Top
Kim Kline said
9 months, 4 weeks ago:
@michaelpingree I agree that the “business as usual” response was not the way to handle it. Acknowledging the error or “mispost”, removing it, and posting their plan for not letting it happen again has to be the first step. Other posts or tweets should probably be on hold until at least those bases are covered.
@kimkline | # | Top
Rich Brooks said
9 months, 3 weeks ago:
@deairby
Oddly and sadly they spiked up about 1K users.
Probably just people who wanted to see what happens next, but it’s unfortunate that they probably haven’t learned their lesson.
@rich-brooks | # | Top
Brian Mulawka said
9 months, 3 weeks ago:
This is one of those times where speed and honesty are important. The NRA made an almost identical mistake, but they were quicker to fix it so it didn’t flare out of control as badly. In both cases, an explanation and an obviously heartfelt apology are in order.
@brianmulawka | # | Top
Stacy Layman said
9 months, 3 weeks ago:
Whoa! Ouch is right… my advice to companies that aren’t employing in-house marketing/social media staff is to outsource LOCAL social media experts within key demographic areas. Hiring people that are participating in the company’s local cultures would lend much greater credibility to all their posts (vs. knee-jerk or inappropriate reactions). Local experts are perfect, because they are already very familiar with the company’s target audiences, news streams, and surrounding businesses. BUY LOCAL
@brightgreenpath | # | Top