Comments on: How To Avoid Accidental Tweets & Disasters

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Mon, 30 May 2011 08:43:21 +0000

How about having a separate team monitor employee tweets and RT company-relevant stuff to the company account?

By: Ashley Forrester

Ashley Forrester — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:39:01 +0000

Now it is a proven fact that Twitter is one of the most effective ways of staying updated with your customers and followers.
That means if used properly, Twitter can be used as an effective social media marketing tool to promote your brands and products. However, if not used properly Twitter can also ruin the reputation of your business. Many people out there are implementing some wrong marketing ideas on Twitter and expecting go get great results.

By: Gabriele Maidecchi

Gabriele Maidecchi — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:37:52 +0000

Using different browsers is a good way to avoid problems, I do it as well especially when I have to work with my Follows list on the standard Twitter interface, as it’s kinda boring to log on and off different accounts.
I managed to screw things up a while ago when I posted a DM as a normal Twitter once, it wasn’t anything embarrassing but personal enough to wish it never happened. I managed to delete it within 20 seconds, which kinda surprised me as I never did that before and I kept my cool even if the situation was particularly annoying. I admit it was a problem with the specific client’s interface (the Hootsuite app) which fooled me into thinking the Send button was instead a Reply to DM one… well hey, you can’t be perfect all the times right?

By: bluephoenixnyc

bluephoenixnyc — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 14:07:24 +0000

I feel like a Chrysler-like crisis is easy to avoid: Just separate your personal time from your work time. If your job is to build the Chrysler brand and not your own, you probably shouldn’t be updating your Twitter status on the clock anyway. The opposite also applies about leaving the branded account alone when you’ve gone home. That kind of discipline would go a long way towards rectifying some of these clumsy tweeting accidents.

Then again, some companies might have around-the-clock brand development built into their strategy. That probably renews something that anyone in social media should live by: Think before you tweet.

By: Maciej (ma-chi)

Maciej (ma-chi) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 11:46:23 +0000

This is great, I think for repeat offenders there should be a breathalyzer at the computer just so people don’t drink & tweet.

By: john Falchetto

john Falchetto — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:00:21 +0000

Lisa, you just stopped a whole bunch of people from making the news with their Twitter ‘oopsies’. Now what we will blog about? ;)

Now your comment above opened a whole new dimension, should we be more forgiving to people who make a mistake out of trying as opposed to those who can’t use a browser properly?
This is a fine line, a mistake is a mistake but I believe the lesson is more important than the mistake itself. Thanks for showing us how to avoid these mistakes in the first place.

By: Dan Cristo

Dan Cristo — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 19:58:53 +0000

Hey Lisa,
Great topic.

As more and more brands get into this social media thing I’m sure we’re all in store for many more tweet disasters. There’s just so much that can go wrong: from poor judgement with jokes to angry customer service reps venting at customers (Remember that Verizon rep when the iPhone came out – whew).

It wouldn’t surprise me if brand reputation specialists were called in when companies screw up. Could be a great consulting gig.. hmm.

Dan

By: Rhea Drysdale

Rhea Drysdale — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 19:55:58 +0000

“Simply doing something stupid” is rarely so black and white. Judgment and moral decisions are something deeper than slipping up, but with simple mistakes due to a lack of foresight, technology problems or inexperience, “you can be smarter.” Implementing the methods you outlined makes us smarter, but in our case, much like the case of others, we got here by making a “stupid” mistake and learning from it. Mistakes pushed us to create a process that reduces future errors and that, in my mind, makes us innovators in our field. We saw a problem and corrected for it.

The Air Force comment was relating fear of mistakes back to the fear of innovation, but it’s rooted in not chastising the more simple mistake. That’s the whole point of the post in my mind. Humans will make mistakes, but we can’t live in fear of them (which of course we will, because it’s human to worry, too).

By: Lisa Barone

Lisa Barone — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 17:59:49 +0000

Definitely. Before you send that tweet, publish that update, let go of that email…stop, confirm the account, and then go. If more people did that we’d have a lot fewer “oopsies” out there.

By: P.S. Jones

P.S. Jones — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 16:45:26 +0000

I live in fear of this everyday, actually. As someone who does a lot of quick tasks, I found that just slowing down and double checking everything really helps.