Kenneth Cole's tweet heard around the world is a terrific, terrifying example of online tactics gone wrong. If you don't know about it already, just google "Kenneth Cole Tweet," or read this Washington Post commentary with a little more info on the Twitter fall out. The gist -- Kenneth Cole's twitter feed made a joke about the revolution in Egypt for the sake of sales...yuck.
When you think about it, this is an example of a company that was trying use online channels, hashtags, and the human voice (this time, really, really bad humor) to interact with consumers (and sell products). Generally, this is all good stuff that they could have learned from the Cluetrain Manifesto. And with their "human voice," Kenneth Cole made a very human mistake -- they told a joke that was not funny, not even a little bit. But when you are a big company, and the comment is made online, you can never get it back (thank you, screen shots).
In reality, the tweet was probably posted by a lowly junior staffer who was just trying to be creative, and get the company into a "trending topic." I feel truly sorry for this person -- they probably need a new job right about now.
These blunders happen in politics all the time. Rep. Bartlett's apologizy to BP instantly exploded on every online channel. ACORN was permanently damaged after being caught helping an undercover "prostitute" evade taxes on videos that were posted to YouTube. Rangel was rude to a well-known reporter. The point is -- in the age of the internet these mistakes are very easily publicized.
It's also sometimes a lot harder to be forgiven. In my opinion, you have to do more than say your mistake was "poorly timed" in your apology. Try again, Kenneth Cole.
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