If you have not been paying attention to Social Media news over the past week, no one can really blame you, the situation in Japan is more than filling up the airwaves and rightfully so. In fact, I almost missed this little gem today and I am glad I didn’t because it should make you sit back and look at how you are controlling and monitoring your event or conference’s social media “output”.
Here is a tweet that went out via Chrysler’s @chryslerautos twitter account today:
“I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to fucking drive.”
Brilliant – Yes, Wrong Twitter Account – You Bet.
It seems that someone got their personal account confused with the account that they managed for Chrysler and dropped the ol f-bomb thinking they were tweeting to their chums and pals when they were actually blasting this out to the 8000 followers of the company that brought us “imported from Detroit” (I really thought they would have more than 8000 followers).
This is a lesson to everyone in the meetings and events business, do NOT use the same social media management tool for personal and business, keep church and state separate or you too could run into something like this. Not hard to do, really it isn’t.
What were the repercussions you ask? Well, the fine folks over at Business Review USA got a screenshot of Chrysler’s apology. Here it is:
On top of the apology, the company that managed Chrysler’s social media business got the ax, so did the employee and now the company that thinks it is OK to have Eminem as a spokesperson (he drops more f-bombs than me) but is not OK to let one slip on twitter is now looking for a new social media management company. You can read the local ABC story here.
I like Eminem as an artist, but really, you have to see the irony. This little slip caused all of this havoc… did the folks at Chrysler not listen to ANY of his albums before they hired him as a spokesperson…. seriously, they got their undies in a bunch over this? But I digress…..
If you do not keep your personal and your business accounts in different places, they will eventually overlap, it is inevitable.
So- Use one platform for personal (HootSuite) and another for business (TweetDeck) and you can avoid having to explain how this fucking shit happens.
