Social media is a great amplifier of influence, but this works both ways… your social media disasters will become infamous. How you prevent social media mistakes from happening as well as having a contingency plan to deal with the issues will make or break your online image. Over the last eight years running my marketing agency, StringCan Interactive, I’ve seen time and time again the same type of issues that were easily preventable. Here are five tips to prevent your business issues from becoming a meme.
1. Lock Up Your Account
You don’t want to be the person responsible for finding out your corporate Twitter account was used for seriously controversial tweets, especially if you have millions of followers. Use a software tool such as LastPass, to securely handle login information to each of your social media accounts. And set a reminder on your calendar to proactively reset passwords every 4 to 6 months.
Example: McDonald’s blame hacker for the tweet that insulted President Trump.
2. Have People With Different Backgrounds Review EVERYTHING
What sounds light-hearted and cute to one person can be incredibly insensitive to others. At StringCan, we have found this to be extremely effective where we have 2 to 3 different people review all our marketing deliverables. For example, if we were writing advertising copy for a new Google Ad campaign for one of our fitness center clients that was targeting a mom we would ask one of our mom team members to review it, even if they weren’t working on that client project.
Example: Adidas sent an email congratulating everyone for “surviving” the Boston Marathon in 2017 apparently forgetting the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three and injured 260 more.
Example: Dove post on Facebook in 2017 featuring a black woman transform into a white woman, apparently with help of Dove product.
3. Never Post Anything “Freestyle”
All posts should be approved by marketing and confirmed by an executive, with multiple verifications, spell-checks, and so on. It only takes a few minutes to double check your work but it can take months, even years, to try and repair a social media snafu.
Example: U.S. Department of Education misspells tweet about W.E.B. Du Bois… AND the apology tweet.
4. Consider Implications Before You Post
You may think your post is simple, but often, the implication of your post is anything but.
Example: When the New York Taxi Workers Alliance called for a one-hour boycott into JFK International Airport to protest the Trump travel ban on Muslim-majority countries in January 2017, Uber announced that it will “drop surge pricing” during that time. This effectively made them strike-busters and anti-Islam… all in a single tweet.
5. Don’t Be Confrontational (Even if You’re Famous)
Yes, it’s your company, and it’s your account. You can do anything with it, but should you?
Example: Elon Musk had to apologize after calling the Thai cave rescuer Vernon Unsworth “pedo guy” via a tweet when his mini-sub was not used in the cave rescue. Stockholders are not happy, even after Musk apologized… sort of.
Now all you have to do is follow these simple (and pretty obvious) guidelines and you’re good to go. Check my social media accounts out and give me your feedback and hopefully, you don’t catch me making one of the common mistakes above! Twitter, LinkedIn, and old-fashioned contact me.
Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.