Author: Brian Lee

Last month American clothing designer Kenneth Cole inappropriately tweeted again, this time using the on-going conflict in Syria to promote footwear. After some deserved backlash, he delivered a brief video apology on his Instagram account. Many felt his apology was insincere, and lacked any sort of conviction. Regardless of where one may stand on the Syrian conflict, footwear or Kenneth Cole’s misguided sense of foreign-policy related advertising, it may be a good idea to take a step back and look at the impact a rogue tweet or post can have.

As our society connects grows faster and faster, the easier it is for us to share our lives with each other through status updates, check-ins, vines and tweets. But it also makes it easier for us make a mistake in the public eye. And even if we delete our mistake, chances are someone managed to see it before it was taken down.

For a personal account it might just be embarrassing at most. On the corporate level, it can be downright damaging. Screencaps and retweets make it even easier for followers to see the errant tweet, permanently capturing the mistake for all to see. Once they’ve been shared, it doesn’t take long for the ill-crafted message to spread. Remember the old adage from Mark Twain?

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

Unfortunately social media only speeds up how fast that lie may be traveling around the world. But remember, it can also help the truth put its shoes on more quickly, too.

It’s just as easy to take to the virtual airwaves and issue a timely and appropriate apology. In fact, sometimes the speed social media runs at can put the brakes on a runaway train before it becomes a full wreck.

One particularly strong example was The American Red Cross and a tweet meant to be sent from an employee’s personal account. The tweet read: “Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch beer … when we drink we do it right #gettingslizzerd”

Obviously not the message Red Cross wants to share with its followers. Within hours, the tweet had been deleted, and a new message had been tweeted: “We’ve deleted the rogue tweet but rest assured the Red Cross is sober and we’ve confiscated the keys”

The apology was timely, appropriate and even relatively humorous. The Red Cross handled the situation perfectly. Admitting its mistake, it deleted the tweet and moved forward. And in this case, it even ended up a plus for the Red Cross. Amused by the tweet, Dogfish Head Brewery started a campaign to solicit donations to the Red Cross, using the same “gettingslizzerd” hashtag to promote the aid organization’s endeavors.

Taking decisive and calculated action was exactly what the Red Cross needed to do, and now the incident is regarded in an entirely more positive light than had they issued a blanket standard-issue apology. And by using Twitter to share its recovery, it made sure to change the momentum of the discussion surrounding the group on the same social network the mistake was made.

Social media continues to grow as a great way to connect with each other in the world around us. Unfortunately we still make mistakes. But if we make sure to embrace the situation in a genuinely positive way, admit the mistake and move forward, something good may even come from whole ordeal.