There are certain times i have said things i wish i could take back. As I keep maturing and learning about how life works I’ve come to know that the magic words “I’m Sorry” only repair half the damage.
We are only just recovering from the foregone political fever, the debates, and oh the tweets as well! Thanks to the bad choice of words, and a mix-up within KitchenAid’s Twitter team. An offensive tweet was sent out from the KitchenAid twitter account during the first campaign/presidential debate, in which Barack Obama wasn’t “faring” so well. The tweet which reads “@KitchenAidUSA: “Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president. #nbcpolitics”, got a lot of negative attention from twitter users and the general public likewise. The company deleted the tweet moments later, and tendered an apology to President Obama and the public too- but the damage had already been done ( the blunder had been re-tweeted by thousands of people).
Image Credit: thefuturebuzz.com
This tweet, among others, was tagged as one of the “Scariest PR Mistakes of 2012” by CrenshawCommunications. This is an example of how social media can bring to the downfall of an organization. The person in charge of KitchenAid’s twitter account failed to understand the “public” in social networking.
Fortunately, the KitchenAid head Cynthia Soledad handled the situation effectively by taking responsibility of the actions of her team. The silver lining for this crisis, was the quickness in response to the tweet. I wouldn’t have done anything differently, because Soledad was quite prompt with her apology, and majority of people seemed to be calmed by her great effort.
My only advice to avoid future crisis as such, will be to take care of who they company puts in charge of its social media accounts. Personal opinions and bias in a company is not very good business. I am sure KitchenAid and fellow companies have learned a lesson from this occurrence.
PinkieWrites 