By now many of you have heard about last week’s f-bomb deriding Detroit drivers in the errant Chrysler tweet. If you haven’t, here’s a good overview of the story from someone who inadvertently became part of it.
Of course, this isn’t the first and won’t be the last time a dumb mistake is amplified on Twitter. I think we can learn three things from it:
- Social media is the intersection of the personal and professional (Joseph Jaffe). The lines between work and play are blurred and will continue to be. But one thing stays constant: good judgment.
- Employees: you need to figure out how much of your personality you can share and how it impacts the organization you work for. Yes, there’s freedom of expression, but there are also HR rules and policies that must be adhered to if you want to continue in your job. If that’s not good enough, you can always fly solo or become an entrepreneur. Businesses: please develop and share a social media policy so staff understand the boundaries and can exercise restraint when necessary.
- Everyone makes mistakes. But like traffic accidents a lot of public gaffes are preventable. Rather than running every red light, let’s try some defensive tweeting: stop, look, listen… and then tweet. And maybe this is a bigger lesson that every personal gripe or frustration doesn’t need a public airing.
Now onto another question. Should the agency responsible have been fired? I think the client has good cause. Personally, I wish the agency would have owned up, taken responsibility and offered to resign first. That would have demonstrated ethics and courage and would have shown them to be a firm that stands for something.
I’m interested to hear what you think.
Martin,
This was really much to do about nothing. There is no public relations lesson.
As always, mistakes happen. Geez, people are acting like the agency made a mistake and had to recall 250,000+ vehicles. Oh wait, that WAS Chrysler.
Best,
Rich
Good point about Chrysler… My feeling about any public communications error is that it offers us a chance to learn from it for next time.
You know how I feel about this. Maybe the agency did offer to resign and were fired instead. We really don’t know. But I think it’s completely over-the-top. Imagine if they had, instead, reacted the way the Red Cross did. Talk about great publicity!
I like this post. My advice to people looking into getting into social media is “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” Yes, twitter has given us a platform to communicate in real time, but just like the advice from years ago about thinking twice before sending a nasty email, people should think twice before tweeting. I’ve accidentally posted a few times on corporate accounts, things I meant to post on my personal account. It was slightly embarrassing to have my employer excited about Elvis’ birthday in one instance where I made a mistake, but instead of getting fired my coworkers just made fun of me. All of it – good and bad – becomes your digital footprint, so do it responsibly.
I appreciate your comment, Diane and the notion of doing it (i.e. social media) responsibly.
Hi Martin,
I liked your concise take on the story. I’ve been surprised by how much analysis has focussed on whether or not it’s cool to use the f-bomb when to me, the real story is the context. Regardless of the fluidity of social media, the old rules of judgement and discretion do and should apply. Even if the employee in question had tweeted from his person account and not the Chrysler one, it would still have been inappropriate. I might take a very prudent approach but if you work for the auto industry, don’t complain about the auto industry! Same goes for any other industry, product category, etc. you might find yourself representing in agency life.
Regarding whether or not the agency should have been fired, it’s hard to decide without having a full accounting of the context – how the relationship was before the mistake, if the campaign is successful, if things were already strained, if this was the latest in a string of mistakes.
Many in the blogosphere seem to think Chrysler didn’t have to pull the plug on the agency. But as many auto industry bloggers have pointed out, this is a company that is rebounding from a recession, trying to find its place amidst increasing competition and in the middle of a heritage branding campaign which focuses heavily on Detroit as motor city, the birthplace of automobiles. That considered, could Chrysler really have just let this go?
Thanks Louise. I don’t know if they could just let go since their whole campaign is based on the city.
It’s always easy to poke fun at things we think are blatant flaws. That said, I’ve never been a fan of cheap shots and it feels like in its essence, that’s what this tweet was.