What to Do When Your Social Media Site Is an Embarrassment

¶ … Recover from a Social Media PR Disaster," lists several instances in which social media stories have not gone the way they should, or have in fact turned out to be a negative experience for the reader and hence, for the person that posted the story. This paper reviews and critiques the social media posts that are featured, and offers opinions on the validity and credibility of the narrative provided by the author of the article as well.

How to Recover from a Social Media PR Disaster -- A Critique how to launch damage control when a tweet on Twitter or a post on Facebook turns out to be in poor taste, or worse -- a very valuable theme in a digital world where it seems there are too many participating who are thoughtless, rude, or just clumsily incompetent people and corporations. The old adage, "Think before you act," seems to have gone the way of the hand-written thank you note sent via snail mail.

And Sniderman has the right idea in attempting to give those who post stupid, cruel, or just embarrassingly awkward messages and images, a way to make amends. Sniderman's first example -- a cute dog missing on his attempt to jump through a tire with a big "FAIL" as a header -- shows poor taste on the part of American Express. Next, Sniderman mentions "horror stories" -- such as the tweet from Chrysler Corporation that no one in Detroit can "f-ing drive," and other tweets that were clearly in poor taste.

But Sniderman should not have included former U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner's photo tweet of his private parts in the same paragraph as Aflac's jokes about the disastrous earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Weiner's misstep was a career-ending scandal, not to be confused with the type of blunder as the Secret Service tweeting criticisms of Fox News.

In fact Weiner found himself in deep water initially, and tried to bail himself out with some serious damage control only to make the same incredibly scandalous mistake a second time by tweeting photos of his intimate personal body parts. Weiner's tweet is off the charts when it comes to the kind of missteps that Sniderman is offering.

Under a pictured tweet that is clearly in terrible taste -- using the "uproar" in Cairo to promote a new clothing line when Egypt has seen years of bloodshed and social revolution -- Sniderman makes some of his best points of the piece. He lists the five "main types" of "slips that can do serious damage to your brand": a) the inappropriate opinion; b) the insensitive statement; c) the early release; d) the false reward; and e) the hack (Sniderman, p. 2).

In the narrative that follows his list of "slips," for the most part, Sniderman takes the proper amount of time and emphasis to identify each of the blunders. Of interest in particular though is Sniderman's assertion that the "hack" is both the "…most dangerous and the easiest to recover from." It is realistic to posit that when a criminal intrudes into a social media site, that intrusion could create a dangerous and potentially libelous problem.

But, on the other hand, saying a hack is the "easiest to recover from" is a stretch. For example, knowing that many corporations use Facebook, and being aware that sophisticated hackers can get into just about any network they wish to, there is an enormous potential downside to a vicious attack by a hacker. Indeed, if someone hacks a dairy company's Facebook site -- say, Borden's -- and posts a realistic-looking message that human feces have been found in milk, the damage can be devastating.

Certainly, Borden's marketing and legal teams can quickly explain to consumers that it was just a hacker intruding. However, given how fast information moves along the Internet, and how quickly tweets can be read and spread around the whole planet -- not to mention the human rumor mill -- this false information can have "shelf life" (or "legs") and do serious damage.

Of those who see the false post about human feces, how many will instantly recognize that this was fake? Even those that do recognize that an imposter hacked into the Borden's Facebook site will no doubt have conversations with others about it and the chance that misinformation can be gleaned and promoted by someone overhearing those conversations is very possible. Meanwhile Sniderman covers the subject of how to deal with gaffs quite well.

He quotes the president of Venga, Winston Bao Lord, who says, very accurately, that "…things on Twitter spread like wildfire"; and "…if you wait an hour or two" before countering whatever blunder was made, "that would be an eternity" (Sniderman).

However, just below Lord's opinions, Sniderman insists that as difficult as it is to patch up a blunder, flub, blooper -- or whatever mistakes in social media can be called -- "Even harder is owning up to your mistakes." To wit, he says that instead of arguing that the mistake "wasn't so bad or that you're actually in the right," come clean and pony up. This should be a.