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Ashton Kutcher & the 5 Most Damaging Tweets of All Time

gyro

While Ashton Kutcher may not break much new ground in the acting realm, he is unquestionably a social media pioneer. Like Elvis, 8 million-plus fans (or in this case, Twitter followers) can’t be wrong. Still, even Kutcher managed to make a mess of things for himself with his hasty take on the Penn State-Joe Paterno controversy, proving that even the savviest of social media marketers can stumble and fall.

Here is a look at, arguably, the top five most damaging tweets of all time and what marketers can learn from them. Let’s start with Kutcher’s:

The Tweet: @aplusk “How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste.”

The Lesson: Kutcher should know the cardinal rule by now: Think before you tweet. After all, he has been successfully leveraging Twitter since its early days (see Kutcher vs. CNN for proof).

But the real issue is in his apology. He states that he will let Katalyst public relations vet his tweets moving forward. People followed Kutcher because they wanted to hear what he said, not Katalyst PR’s version of what he said. Social media’s beauty is that it offers transparency or at least the illusion of it. Ashton’s tweet erased all that just as he erased his ill-advised tweet.

Note: Of course, having PR firms monitor or ghostwrite tweets is common practice. (More on that later.) And if you haven’t seen it, comedian Mark Davidson worked out a wonderful social media hoax around the subject of Twitter ghostwriting.

The Tweet: @kennethcole “Millions are in an uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KC”

The Lesson: Kenneth Cole may have only about 16,000 followers, but his tweet made the whole world notice, for obvious reasons. Cole backpedaled immediately.  and issued a formal response that included this line: “In hindsight my attempt at humor regarding a nation liberating themselves against oppression was poorly timed and absolutely inappropriate.” However, the damage was done. There have been plenty of examples of marketers hijacking world news to draw attention to themselves or their brands. In fact, when done right, this tactic can be wildly effective, but this is obviously not one of those times.

Next: Forgetting who you are ...

The Tweet: @chryslerautos: “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f*****g drive.”

The Lesson: This one was a case of someone at a PR agency who got a little frisky with the client’s Twitter handle. The employee who issued the message was fired, as was his employer, New Media Strategies. Allegedly, the poster thought he or she was sending this bit of snark to his or her personal account, which is a lesson in itself. I’ve made the mistake myself of tweeting to my personal address instead of my company’s Twitter on more than one occasion. Granted, I don’t drop many (or any) F-bombs in my tweets.

The Tweet: @RedCross “Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch beer…. when we drink we do it right #gettngslizzerd”

The Lesson: The Red Cross certainly didn’t want this blasted to its more than half a million followers. Again, this tweet was allegedly a matter of the poster tweeting to the wrong account. After all, it isn’t uncommon to anoint someone “junior” as a social media maven because he or she “gets it.” A lot of examples are bubbling up. But, lo and behold, they don’t follow the brand messaging or really think about what they are tweeting because they are used to talking to their friends. Still, the Red Cross handled this tweet deftly with follow-up tweets: “We’ve deleted the rogue tweet but rest assured the Red Cross is sober and we’ve confiscated the keys.” It even turned the opportunity into a fundraising effort with Dogfish Head. A follow-up tweet read: “While we’re a 130-year-old humanitarian organization, we’re also made up of human beings. Thanks for not only getting that but for turning our faux pas into something good.” Well done.

The Tweet: @RepWeiner The infamous indecent photo

The Lesson: Apparently, Weiner meant to direct message his infamous photo versus share it with the world. It goes to show you, as with Kutcher, someone who is skilled at social media can still make a grave error. Of course, the bigger error was to take the photo and send it in the first place, followed by the denial that his account was hacked, which was, as we all know, a lie. It is worth noting that Weiner hasn’t tweeted since June, and that’s probably a good idea.

Top-three dishonorable mentions:

  1. Former Aflac spokesman Gilbert Gottfried’s inappropriate Japan jokes
  2. Rashard Mendenhall’s take on the Death of Bin Laden
  3. The PR exec who Insulted Memphis and his FedEx client

I’m sure I missed a couple. Feel free to share below.

See more at gyro.com.

Follow Kenneth on Twitter @KennethHein