US Airways' Tweet Takes a Hard Landing & Other Social Media News

We love to laugh at the mistakes of brands, especially in social media. I can write a litany of examples that have gone viral over the years, but do we ever think of the ramifications of our laughter? Over the years we have seen sleeping technicians, issues in Detroit, countless horrid Customer service calls posted online, YouTube videos (especially showing food service providers), and so many other examples. The latest example comes from an industry we like to laugh at, or at least vent our frustration at. A Customer service representative responding to a complaint online sent an image that was completely inappropriate and pornographic. Just like all those other examples, the Internet went wild sharing the story and the image. We love to laugh at mistakes by big brands, especially in industries we love to hate.

The challenge is behind that brand are individuals; people just like you or me. They made a mistake that will be perceived to be horrid for the brand. Of course the Internet will forget soon enough, because our attention span is just not that long. Immediately following the tweet, speculation ran rampant as to the cause of the rogue tweet. Could someone have hacked the US Airways twitter account? Some would bet that it was a rogue employee going out in a blaze of glory. I immediately started to think about the poor person who made the error. I would imagine they feel horrible and all this activity online is probably not helping them any.

There seems to be a playbook on how to handle these situations. First you immediately apologize for the error, then you delete the tweet. As times settles down another common practice is terminating the employee or employees who were involved. The fact is brands want to place blame on what created the firestorm that transpired online. I often wonder if those laughing at the situation online ever made a mistake? I know I have, as I am sure everyone has. Maybe it was not as grand scale as this, but a mistake is a mistake. This is social media. I know we often take the impact it has quite seriously, but the fact is no one was hurt. Yes the brand has a short term blip for people to laugh at but I doubt there will be much impact to the amount of people flying with the airline. I hope the airline, as well as other businesses, learn from this and work with vendors to ensure there are safeguards in place to help prevent things like this. I am sure executives will demand answers, but that does not always mean termination. The key is to explain what happened and steps that are being taken to ensure it will not happen in the future. The company did issue a statement and it sounds like it was an error using a tool to manage social media. Focus on properly training your staff or make adjustments to the tool you are using instead of jumping to point blame at an employee. The reason these things go viral often is not just about the content itself, but also the feeling people have for the company involved or the industry itself. This was especially funny to some simply because it was an airline, and we often like to hate airlines. US Air, according to Business Insider (please note the original picture is accessible from this link), issued the following statement on the topic:

We apologize for the inappropriate image we recently shared in a Twitter response. Our investigation has determined that the image was initially posted to our Twitter feed by another user. We captured the tweet to flag it as inappropriate. Unfortunately the image was inadvertently included in a response to a customer. We immediately realized the error and removed our tweet. We deeply regret the mistake and we are currently reviewing our processes to prevent such errors in the future.

The US Airways tweet is not the only mistake in the news recently. Another tweet worthy of discussion is one that could cost money to Duane Reade and parent company Walgreens. Actress Katherine Heigl is suing the company because they shared a picture of her walking in NYC carrying Duane Reade bags. It will be interesting to follow the case. The image itself was taken on a public street, but placing in a tweet can be perceived as an endorsement. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the courts. It is always important for brands to be careful regarding what they share, and how they share it.

Also in social media news is a warning letter from the FTC to Cole Haan regarding a Pinterest contest where Consumers would share images with a specific hashtag. Those sharing the images were eligible to win a prize. In this warning letter from the FTC, it was noted that the participants did not disclose their potential financial arrangement with the hashtag. This warning is important for every business that is considering any social media contest that includes sharing of content. This could have long term impact for every brand in the United States.

As we see more and more of these situations, coupled with the impact brands are seeing with organic reach of social media content, the more I think brands should stop trying to focus on posting useless content on all these social media websites, and instead focus on earned media through the experience you create as a brand. If you create experiences that are share worthy, people will share it! Unfortunately the vast majority of brands create bad Customer experiences that are share worthy, but they may not be the message the brand wants to have out in the public eye. Tara Hunt recently wrote a piece on the topic called the Decline of Owned and the Rise of Earned that you may want to check out. In my view companies may want to focus on moving owned to their own web properties, consisting of content not designed to push product but instead focusing on offering value to the reader. This content could later be used as part of a highly targeted digital marketing campaign that tries to add value for the Consumer at the exact moment they need it. The challenge to this type of model is the payback is over time, not immediate, but times are changing and it is about adding value to a specific individual not mass push marketing.

The key is learning that there are all kinds of mistakes that happen, and we all make them. Always try to remember the people involved and realize someday that could easily be you.

UPDATE: The NY Daily News has posted a statement from US Airways that indicates no one will be fired for what was an accident. Kudos to US Air. You can read the story here.