US Airways Tweets a Naughty
We all know social media is a blessing for real time marketing, but it can also be a curse. There are an abundant amount of stories of social media disasters and blunders to go around. But when it comes to embarrassing tweets, I think US Airways takes the cake with their blunder in April 2014.
It all started innocently enough. A customer had an unpleasant experience on a flight and she tweeted the airline. Okay — nothing crazy, happens all the time. But then US Airways responds to the customer with the intention of getting feedback but instead tweets a filthy pornographic image instead! OMG! I don’t think anything more embarrassing can happen to a brand than this.
The airline immediately responds, removing the offending tweet and issuing an apology. But we all know this embarrassing mistake will follow the company for a very long time. Because NOTHING ever dies on the internet!
Unfortunately, mistakes like this can happen when things unfold instantaneously and in real time. Even with safeguards in place, you just can’t anticipate everything that can happen. In most cases of inappropriate tweets, the culprit is usually a disgruntled employee. But in the case of US Airways, the company mistakenly re-tweeted an image that was tweeted at them. It was an honest mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.
I know as marketers we always want to be prepared for anything. But oftentimes your best course of action is just to apologize, learn from it, and move on. As was the case with US Airways.
