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In a month where a “beach body ready” campaign hit the news in the UK with people taking to twitter to protest, an ANZAC campaign went wrong in Australia and Baltimore erupted over every media outlet, not just the social ones, I spotted two social media fails that were not just stupid, they were repeats of earlier fails.
People make mistakes, I get it, I have a long list of my own mistakes that I’m not publishing. This is a reminder to pay attention to your social media posts, and to think before you post.
1 Bad Reaction
A burger bar owner lost his cool with a customer on Facebook. His rant is laden with insults, bizarre comparisons and swear words.
What did the customer do to deserve this?
She sent a private message saying that her son had had an upset stomach with vomiting following a meal at the burger bar. She finished her message with “Just wanted you to be aware. We thought the burgers were fantastic and know it’s probably a one-off”.
The reaction is about 20:1 in favour of the customer, with many commenters declaring they’ll never eat there.
We’ve seen this before, back in 2013 Amy’s Baking Company was visited by Gordon Ramsay in his show Kitchen Nightmares. The restaurant in question responded in flurry of furious facebook posts and it all went downhill from there. As Forbes later pointed out in their lessons on social media; Don’t Insult People. I’d go further; don’t tweet when you’re mad.
2 Fired Before you Start
A single mum landed a job at a daycare centre but before she could start the centre changed their decision and she’s out of a job. Why?
She complained online about hating working at daycare centres and she doesn’t like being around kids all the time. It didn’t take long for those comments to reach the day care centre, and they rescinded their offer.
This has happened before, famously a young woman tweeted;
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She learnt the hard way that companies monitor social media, that what you say on a social media channel is public – and permanent, and what you say could be damaging.
These incidents were all avoidable if the posters had thought through the impact of their words. A former colleague who was expert in digital security used to say that everything you put online is “public and permanent”. That means that the list of people who can see your post isn’t just the friends you tag; it’s your boss, future boss, future girl/boyfriend, brother, colleague, journalist, neighbour and your mum.
Think before you post.
Image: LEGO Twitter Fail Whale | Tveskov | CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
