This Monday morning was your typical start of the day for any
public relations student I know. Nothing too out of the ordinary came about.
Personally, I went to my first class, prepared for a presentation, presented
that presentation, and then returned to my seat. As I sat in my Ethics class
full of public relations and advertising students, I decided to check Twitter
and see what was news for the day.
It was
nearly 3 o’clock when I saw tweets
regarding US Airways tweeting something inappropriate. Oh, big deal! Probably a
hoax or rumor. I decided to check US Airways account to see if this was a true
event and sure enough they have tweeted an apology regarding the tweet and have
removed said tweet.
My next
instinct, like anyone else, is to go find this tweet. Someone in the Twitter
world had to screenshot it for the rest of us. They couldn’t leave us all in
the dark and hog the excitement to themselves! I search US Airways and there is
already several articles regarding the tweet with this “inappropriate” photo.
Most articles have it blurred and other Twitter users took the courtesy of just
tweeting the graphic picture outright.
Obviously I
refuse to post this photo on my blog, go look it up if you haven’t seen it but
you have been warned.
My reasoning
for making my blog this week about this tweet is to discuss public relations
crises such as this one. I also feel the need to post some hilarious responses
to the incident as well, just for fun.
When I first
saw the tweet and read the apology I wasn’t sure how I would react as someone
representing this company after something like that. The first thing I would do
is apologize immediately. People were obviously offended and upset, a lot of
people were even more upset the tweet had been up for quite a while. So, first
action to take is issue that apology.
Some people and organizations seem to
think that waiting until the commotion has died down is the better response. I
think that apologizing first and as soon as possible is a better response. This
shows you are aware of the incident, it was a mistake and that actions are
being taken to fix it.
Photo
courtesy of yahoo.com
This is what US Airways did. They
apologized and updated the public on the current state of the incident. I
thought they did right by issuing the apology and letting everyone know they
were doing something about it by investigating.
Next, I would investigate and update
the public on the situation as it unfolds. It turns out this tweet was an
honest mistake by an employee who removed the post as soon as they realized
what they had done. For your entertainment, I thought I would post these tweets
I found later in the afternoon the day the tweet went out:
It has come out that the link to the
graphic photo was in a link from a previous user who had tagged the airline in
a tweet. The employee had reported the tweet and accidentally used that link
when replying to another user about sending in comments or reviews to the
airline.
That poor employee has probably had
the worst week ever. But don’t worry, they are getting to keep their job for
this honest mistake! A day ago, I read numerous articles about statements from
US Airways regarding them keeping their employee and forgiving them of this
accident. Here is a recent article I found about
keeping the employee.
Don’t you wish most companies were
like this? If they had fired the employee even though they admitted it was an
honest accident I could see the public being enraged. I think this was just
another smart move by US Airways during this crazy week for them.
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