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So today our nation witnessed a horrible crime in Aurora, Colorado. A shooter killed and injured many people at a midnight showing of Batman the Dark Knight Rises. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who were affected by this. We aren’t going to go into details about what happened, tune into any news channel or do a search and you’ll find it. Instead we’re going to talk about a social media mishap due to #Aurora trending on Twitter.
Due to the news of this crime in Aurora, Colorado, there have been many great tweets from people offering their condolences and prayers. This caused #Aurora to start trending on Twitter.
A company called CelebBoutique.com which claims to be “the online boutique loved by your fave celebs and your new addiction” saw that #Aurora was trending on Twitter and thought that this was because of one of their dresses with “Aurora” in the name. (Sorry, we really don’t care about celebrity fashion here.) So they tweeted out this……..
What the hell are they thinking?
We thought they might have known about the tragedy and were taking advantage of the buzz. But who would do something like that? Turns out this was a big mistake by their social media department, and they claim they were clueless to what had happened. The tweet has been removed and they followed up with classy RT about the weekend. This was another failed tweet and has since been removed.
After that a number of tweets followed explaining that they didn’t know what was happening in Aurora and that their social media and PR is outsourced to another country.
Outsourced Social Media & PR
Ok this might have been an honest mistake. But this further solidifies our belief that social media and PR should be treated with as much importance as any other part of a business. By outsourcing social media and PR to another country you are giving up control of your company’s Voice—when you do that situations like this will happen.
There are plenty of agencies, freelancers, and knowledgeable people that you can hire to help. We feel that all businesses should be in total control of their social media, or work closely with their agency to have a solid strategy, create content calenders and manage the day to day activities. The small amount of money that Celeb Boutique was saving to outsource their digital media is not going to make up for the bad PR they’ll receive in the coming year.
Overall we recommend you work closely with an in-house team or with your agency to come up with a social media strategy and content calender. Most importantly always be aware of what is going on in the world before you hit that “tweet” button. Social media gives your business a chance to speak to the world and sometimes you might just say the wrong thing!
Question:
Is it worth the savings to outsource your social media and public relations?