6 Lessons to Learn From Social Media PR Disasters

Select your admins carefully.  A CEO will generally not have enough time to tweet regularly, and therefore will delegate the task to a junior employee.  If you’re in this position, choose just one or two admins to manage your accounts, and review their online posting habits on their personal accounts before you hand over the reins.

If it’s borderline offensive, it’s offensive.  Earlier this year, Kenneth Cole made a judgement call on Twitter that was slammed by the public when the fashion powerhouse piggybacked off the #Cairo devastation to announce their spring line.  Some were entertained, most were offended – it’s always better to avoid bad taste.

Remove invalid admins immediately.  As soon as an employee’s posting privileges have been revoked – for whatever reason – remove them and update the password immediately.  This practice should be built in to your exit interview process.

Do research.  Recently, Valentino posted an Instagram picture of Amy Adams, advertising how good she looked sporting their new handbag.  The only drawback was, it was taken at Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s funeral.  The public accused the Italian organization of insensitivity when in actuality, they claimed it was a genuine oversight; they’d posted the photo without validating its source.  Always triple check where your images and words originated if you haven’t generated them yourself.

Consult your employees.  Every business must have a detailed social media policy covering everything from swearing to style, and whoever has access to these channels should review this document and sign it.

Use the appropriate tools.  Micromanaging is burdensome, and is not in the culture of Marketing Eye. However, ensuring the right messages are delivered to our 25,000+ social media followers is extremely important.  HootSuite allows you to pre-load tweets for approval at a later date.  If you don’t manage your own account, make time every day to scan the posts made on your behalf to avoid a potentially hazardous situation.

How do you prevent social media PR disasters in your business?  Have you managed a marketing blooper?  We’d love to hear from you on Twitter or on Facebook.