How To Avoid Social Media Disasters and Blunders

Social media is a great, wonderful, blessing tool that we have at our disposal 24/7. Yes, it is definitely a friend to those of use who like to express ourselves; however, it can also be a foe. In no time at all, you have a 140 character tweet or several hundred character Facebook post get people talking about your brand but is it good or bad talk?

Since the dawn of time, er, social media, we have seen several companies become victims to social media snafus and faux pas for some very silly reasons. The person in charge of the social media account either purposefully or accidentally sent an unfortunate post and then had to deal with the repercussions.

Just recently, US Airways had a rather graphic image pop up in their twitter response to a passenger. If you do not remember or know of this incident, maybe that's for the best. It seems like a hard thing to have happen, we wonder how the person could mess up so bad. However, we all make mistakes and they are easier to have happen. As a Chicago PR agency, we have seen plenty of people fall victim to the seemingly impossible social media mishap.

So how can you avoid these ordeals?

• Have complete thought before you post. Think through what you want to post to your corporate social media accounts. It is not uncommon to have a list of things you can post about. One major thing to consider is the concept of posting content regarding current events. You can post about holidays or things going on in the news but make sure your post is tasteful. If there was a recent disaster, like a tornado, you company could post about it saying, "We are saddened by this event. Our thoughts are with those affected." Or something like that but do not try and capitalize on the situation. Example, "The tornado is sad news, those affected can use our washing detergent brand to wash their clothes." or something like that. 
• Make sure to log out of your accounts. This is especially true if you use your corporate accounts and personal accounts on the same device(s). Chrysler had a tweet complaining about the driving in Detroit, from the Chrysler account; this was likely due to the person forgetting to check if they were using the company or personal account from their device. 
• Remember, whatever you post on social media will be seen. Don't think that you deleted the post within a couple minutes so no one saw it, they saw it. 
• Think about when you are posting. For one thing, there are peak times to post to social media; besides that, you should really not post really late at night because at that time, our minds are tired and our decisions are not always the best. 

As a franchise PR agency, we have to emphasize the importance of these tips. Social media is a friend but can be a monster quickly and can be relentless.