During a US presidential debate in October 2012, President
Obama mentioned his late grandmother who passed away just before being elected
president. In response, a member of the Kitchen Aid social media team posted
the following tweet from the brand’s twitter account instead of their personal
account.
The tweet was quickly removed but not before the uproar that
ensued on twitter with many swearing off the brand for life and some even
calling the company racist.
The head of the Kitchen Aid team quickly tweeted an apology,
apologizing to Obama, his family and to their customers. She even went further
and tweeted to journalists and websites to ask for an opportunity to tell her
side of the story. She addressed the situation and the error of her team
member. She acknowledged the tweet was tasteless and in no way represented the
values of the brand and that this team member would no longer be tweeting for
them. She apologized and took full responsibility for the team member as the
team’s leader.
Her response was noteworthy of what to do in a social media
crisis.
I don’t know if I would have deleted the tweet. In order to
keep complete transparency, I would have left it up. Also, people seeing the
apology tweet but not the tweet/reason for the apology leaves people trying to find
someone who saved it and thus the conversation going. Her apology tweet should have included the hashtag
used on the first tweet.
Another lesson learned is to ensure team members use
different applications, one for the company and one for personal. This is less
convenient for the team members but would alleviate this mistake from happening
again.
In addition, this tweet was immature and tasteless and probably would not have
been well received even if this team member sent it from their personal
account. As a representative of a brand there should be guidelines in place to
not allow users to tweet things that could potentially look bad on a brand.
These guidelines should not just cover when an employee is at work or when
tweeting on behalf of their company.
The public could have linked this person’s
personal views to the view of the brand which is something employer and
employees should factor. I feel that employers should stress to their teams that
what they post on their personal networks should be things that could also be posted
on their brand pages and if it’s not appropriate on their brands pages than it’s
not appropriate on their personal pages.
