Social media and the writing process might seem like badly

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Case Study: Chrysler's Antisocial Tweet

Social media and the writing process might seem like a badly mismatched couple on a nightmare date. Social media are new, exciting, and creative. The writing process can seem cumbersome, boring, and out-of-date. Do social media really need some form of the writing process? Ask the people of Chrysler, New Media Strategies, and the city of Detroit.

As presented in this text, the writing process includes thoughtful language selection, careful editing, review by others, and monitoring of distribution. Any one of those stages might have prevented a tweet that Chrysler inadvertently sent into digital immortality: "I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f-ing drive." (The original writer did not use hyphens.)

The infamous tweet was problematic for at least two reasons. Chrysler, of course, does not condone profanity in its corporate communications. Furthermore, the company had just launched its "Imported from Detroit" marketing campaign, which included a critically acclaimed Super Bowl commercial featuring Eminem, the rapper long associated with the Motor City.

Criticism from sources such as the magazine Automotive News and the website Mashable roared in faster than a Chrysler 300 auditioning for a new Need for Speed movie.

To its credit, Chrysler responded quickly. In a company blog, Ed Garsten, Chrysler's head of electronic communications, condemned the tweet and reaffirmed Chrysler's commitment to the people of Detroit.500

Garsten's response also provided insight into the breakdown that led to the tweet. The writer, an employee of New Media Strategies, had simply posted his tweet to the wrong account; he later blamed an app that was supposed to separate his personal and his professional Twitter accounts.

Chrysler had hired New Media Strategies to assist with its social media marketing - and it promptly fired the agency in the wake of the unfortunate tweet. Only one day after the tweet, a lead headline in Advertising Age announced, "Chrysler Splits with New Media Strategies Over F-Bomb Tweet." That story became one of the magazine's Top Five most-read stories for 2011. New Media Strategies also fired the employee who posted the tweet.501

Another unfortunate consequence of the tweet was renewed tension between marketing and public relations practitioners regarding the use of social media. In an article titled "What Lurks Behind Chrysler's F-Bomb? Social-Media Turf War," Advertising Age declared, "[T]he whole affair shines a light on a continuing turf battle between marketing and communications [public relations] departments over who should own and manage social media."502 Marketers rightly point out that social media can quickly and effectively build interactive relations with customers and potential customers. Public relations practitioners tend to agree-but they note that organizations have target publics beyond customers and that social media messages must be carefully considered as well as rapid and interactive. More than one expert has pointed to the Chrysler tweet as evidence that marketing and public relations should cooperate in the management of social media. "The lesson?" concluded the Boston Globe. "Along with the marketing benefits of social media comes the responsibility to manage it with as much care as traditional marketing and public relations."503

Social media technology companies have responded by building aspects of the writing process into social media. HootSuite, for example, has added a so-called "Are you sure?" buttons to its digital posting platforms. To avoid an automatic, unthinking click, HootSuite has introduced an icon that must be dragged from left to right before a message departs. "Yes, it's a glorified 'are you sure button,' but this is still innovative...," says HootSuite Chief Executive Officer Ryan Holmes.504

Not all critics were so quick to condemn the F-bomber. National Public Radio host and longtime Advertising Age columnist Bob Garfield mocked the decision to fire him:

Fired him for being spontaneous. Fired him for being relevant... the way social media is supposed to be, because the whole point of it is to discard archaic and abrasive concepts of messaging in favor of actual conversations. Not stilted conversations based on 140-character ads ... but actual exchanges among flesh-and-blood non-automatons.505

Garfield also urged Chrysler officials to listen to some of Eminem's language.

Point taken. But professional use of social media might do well to find a midpoint between the "archaic and abrasive concepts of messaging" and the careless spontaneity that can lead to disaster.

Do you agree with Bob Garfield that Cfhrysler and new Media Strategies overreacted?

Reference no: EM133672033

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