Social Media Faux Pas- A Cautionary Tale

After school I would LOVE a career is social media. I know, it sounds easy and everyone thinks they can do it because they have a personal twitter account, but it is not a job that you can take lightly or become lax with. The instant you put a message on a social networking site it is picked up by all of your followers. It is important to double and sometimes even triple check the message before you send it out. Below are real life cautionary tales about employees who accidently posted on the twitter accounts of their employer’s instead of their personal twitter pages. They are also my worst nightmare!


The Red Cross-Red Cross employee, Gloria Huang, meant to tweet the following message to her personal followers- “Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head Midas Touch beer…When we drink we do it right #gettingslizzerd”. Instead, it went to the Red Cross twitter account and was seen by their 270,000 followers. Once the gaffe was discovered, it was deleted and a new tweet was sent saying- “We’ve deleted the rogue tweet but rest assured the Red Cross is sober and we’ve confiscated the keys”.




The Red Cross handled the mistake in a cool and calm manner. They were applauded for their human response instead of a stiff prepared message. The fans of Dogfish Head took notice of this and started fundraising efforts to benefit the Red Cross using the twitter hashtage #gettingslizzerd. Pints for Pints campaigns started popping up at bars nationwide. The idea was simple, give a pint of blood and get a pint of beer. The Red Cross was not involved in these promotions, but did caution people to wait a while between their blood donation and their pint of beer. The Red Cross’s official statement was, “While we’re a 130 year old humanitarian organization, we’re also made up of human beings. Thanks for not only getting that, but for turning our faux pas into something good.”



Chrysler Group LLC-Chrysler employs a social media agency to handle their social networking presence. One of the employees for New Media Strategies, the company Chrysler employed, accidently sent a tweet flaming Detroit. As with the Red Cross, the tweet was meant for her personal twitter account. The tweet read- “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f***ing drive.” This tweet came shortly after Chrysler’s Super Bowl commercial showcasing the highlights of Detroit. You can see the commercial below. Chrysler and New Media Strategies apologized for the tweet and the employee was fired.

The Straits Times- The Straits Times, a Singapore news outlet accidently sent “omg. f*** you all. seriously.” To their 46,000 followers. The very unfortunate post was deleted within seconds but not before it had the chance to be seen and shared repeatedly. The social editor, Ng Tze Young was very sympathetic to the employee who sent the tweet that was meant for his personal account. The employee apologized and was made to review the social media policy of the company.


If I ever land my dream social media position, I will surely develop a case of Twitter OCD due to these stories! I also recommend the use of separate applications for your personal and work twitter accounts! That helps take the guessing out of what account you are logged into.