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How To Screw Up On Social Media

This article is more than 9 years old.

It's not just the small companies and amateurs that make mistakes on social media. The fresh example of the NYPD and its attempt to get people to put pictures of themselves with police officers online - to be greeted by images of alleged police brutality - is only the latest occasion I've seen in which well-intentioned stuff has backfired into the face of the originator.

The NYPD has actually responded pretty well, in confirming that it's a democracy and all views are allowed. Here are some other examples of social media going wrong - mostly because the entrepreneurs, large or small, didn't take control or took too much:

Kenneth Cole and the Egyptian uprising

Fashion designer Kenneth Cole - so important I even have a pair of his socks - famously put up a Tweet saying "Millions are in an uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online." Obviously he was condemned, apologised - and had a whole load of publicity into the bargain. So, social media howler or canny marketing? I'm not actually certain.

McDonald's and the trolls

Burger giant McDonald's had this idea of putting stories about its suppliers online and gave it the hashtag "#McDStories" - and was promptly flooded with customer complaints and satirical comments using the hashtag. One could have some sympathy, the critics were always going to jump on this one - but again, look at the attention it won.

Habitat and the Iran hashtag

British furniture seller Habitat joined Twitter as early as 2009 and like a lot of companies assigned social media to the office junior. No doubt people did the same with email when it first started. The OJ discovered that the hashtag 'Iran' was attracting a lot of attention, as were "apple", 'iPhone" and a whole load of other things that had nothing to do with Habitat . The ensuing hostility was outweighed only by the severity of Habitat's response, which was to blame the young person responsible squarely. Note to modern managers: don't hang the young and inexperienced guy out to dry when something goes wrong, he needs support rather than condemnation.

The defensive correspondent

OK, no names, no pack drill here, but a few people have come very badly unstuck on social media simply by responding to their critics - but with a certain amount of vitriol. A self-published author (who's had enough criticism so I'm not publishing a link) basically told everyone who criticised her writing that there was nothing wrong with it and they were morons for thinking there was; no matter what the truth of the matter, this is never going to play well. A useful strategy can be to thank everyone for their time writing and acknowledge their absolute right to a view; thank the people who've said something positive and amend any factual errors in the rest, but don't be defensive. (I had a book out on social media five years ago and someone put a note on Amazon suggesting I'd glossed over working with designers on a website; on re-reading the passage in question I couldn't help but agree, so the negative comment turned into a learning experience).

The joker

To be fair, this was taken down within an hour of going online but I was among those who saw the well-known airline announcing that it was going onto Twitter only to find someone in the office had 'borrowed' the name and logo and set up an account. If I tell you the profile blurb was along the lines of 'melting pot for retards who think Twitter is important' and it went downhill from there, with every response to any customer with a problem being 'F*** off, retard', you get the idea. It was taken down pronto, but only after the Times in London had put it into a news story (also taken down). Hopefully no damage done as no business deserves that to happen to them; to people with a certain mentality (OK, 'me') it was very funny, very briefly.

So, lessons and suggestions:

1. Be tasteful as you would in any other element of your branding

2. Accept that you can't control the comments - the NYPD probably has this about right

3. Take control of and responsibility for your parts - if the office junior screws up then he or she needs a bit of support and training

4. Register all of your company names on social media - it costs only your time and you don't want to be in the position of the airline in my last example