U.S. NetworX

Sales: (800) 849-4770

Archive for March, 2011

Loose lips sink Twitter ships

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

With a dose of schadenfreude, another highly visible Twitter account has fallen victim to an inappropriate message.

Reported earlier this week by Adweek, the Chrysler Twitter account let slip the F-bomb and is in the middle of playing damage control. The story seems to be still developing, but the latest is that the Detroit automaker will not renew the service contract with their media company. This was on top of a public firing of the poster, but allegedly not requested by the car company.

This is not the first big name being hit by a slip of a finger: consider two more that have been reported just this year.

February saw a Red Cross Twitter user post on the organization’s account about their current level of beer and all that entails. (Bonus points, though, for the group turning it into a slightly humorous event.)

And earlier that month, fashion designer Kenneth Cole’s account posted a less than appropriate message equating pro-democracy riots in Egypt to the launch of a new spring clothing line.

What’s the lesson? For social media managers, be sure you’re posting to the right account. Lots of programs out there (Tweetdeck, Cotweet, etc.) can let you manage multiple accounts at one time – you have to take care to have the right message for the right account.

Bonus link: check out these propaganda-style designs aimed to promote various social media platforms.

Update: March 14 saw the firing of comedian Gilbert Gottfried due to his Twitter-based jokes on the recent disasters in Japan. Gottfried had portrayed the Aflac duck’s voice in US commercials.