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(Editor Note: When you are friends with people who work in social media, you can’t help but have a lot of chatter when companies do something outrageous. The following is a collaborative guest post that came out of a conversation between such people today. Credits go to Ashley Coombe, Kim Rowley, and Daniel Feinberg for pulling it all together using Shareist.)
It’s not often that use hear anyone use the words “accidental” and “porn” in the same sentence, but today at US Airways, those two words are echoing through the halls.
Don’t worry US Airways, we’ve got your back.
We know it was just an accident. You’ve already got some of these steps taken care of, but we’re providing a guide for businesses that may accidentally follow in your footsteps:
Just in case you live in a cave, here is a recap of exactly what happened with US Airways:
(NSFW!)
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YIKES. This is very NSFW and US Airways is looking into what happened exactly.
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Our Suggestions:
1. Immediately post an apology with the word “Deeply” included. US Airways took care of this immediately. They deeply regretted the issue. Other options: You are deeply sorry. The staffer is deeply embarrassed. The airplane was deeply embedded….
2. Declare that someone was FIRED! Even if you don’t fire anyone, everyone expects someone to get fired.
3. Claim you were hacked. It probably had something to do with that Heartbleed thing.
4. Blame the mistake on a bad reaction to a new medication. Then claim the hacking claim was a result of taking something to alleviate the bad drug reaction.
5. Distract! Point out a time that another company has made an even worse blunder. (Sorry US Airways- this does not apply to you. There is no way it could possibly get any worse.) But there are some similar instances:
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These may be some of the most mortified faces you’ll ever see. Amid coverage of a helicopter crash in Seattle, Wash., Tuesday morning, Fox Denver affiliate KDVR intended to broadcast some Twitter photos from the scene which were presumably being p…
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6. It was just a JOKE! Based on a DARE!
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Police arrested a 14-year-old Dutch girl Monday after she tweeted a terror threat to American Airlines that catapulted her into social media fame overnight.
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7. Blame Technology. Twitter is so confusing with its “hashtags” and character counts. How can anyone be expected to know how to use it properly?
8. Find a way to profit off of it. May we suggest a Affiliate Marketing? Take a look:
These are Affiliate Links! Sales on Diecast US Airway Plane models are sure to go up, this way you can profit!
9. Claim it was an innovative link building technique since we all know that “Guest Posting is Dead.”
10. If all else fails, sit back and enjoy the priceless responses you’re sure to get:
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Whoever sent that US Airways tweet is having a very bad day. But Twitter users most certainly are not. See also: US Airways Posts Extremely NSFW Photo on Its Twitter Feed People…
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Do you have any other great suggestions for companies who royally screw up on social media?
That was a funny mistake though.
I hadn’t heard about this before now. Deeply hilarious.
#11 – Use Target’s excuse – the image was photoshopped by an intern.
The things were actually hilarious….why news channel gets penis in the telecast man 😛 I really loved the post as it was a reminder that some odd things can happen in life .