Honest Mistake? Or Capitalizing on Tragedy and Twitter Trending Topics?

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Chris Reimer

Aurora

Was this just an honest mistake? A plucky young intern that just didn’t know what they were doing? Or was this an attempt to make news, to capitalize on tragedy and the resultant Twitter Trending Topic? You be the judge. I don’t even know what to think anymore.

It’s exceedingly hard to imagine anyone would purposely tweet this on a day like today. (For posterity’s sake, there was a horrible mass shooting in Aurora CO at the premiere of the newest Batman movie).

The tweet embedded, until they delete it:

In an admittedly pointless attempt to keep this sort of thing from ever happening again, spread it around like mad on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook and LinkedIn, and make this company feel shame. And I’d like to hear what you think in the comments below? What was the true intent of the Tweeter here?
 
 
UPDATE – apologetic tweets from Celeb Boutique

Aurora

 

My final take: it appears to have been one big colossal mistake. Their PR is not based in the United States. While this tragedy is likely a worldwide story at this point, it’s entirely possible their social media people had not heard about what happened.

For readily apparent reasons, I advise you to not ride the coattails of a Twitter Trending Topic without understanding why the term or phrase is trending. Things trend for both good and bad reasons. Once click on the trending topic “Aurora” would have shed some light on why it was trending. Sometimes it’s hard not to go 500 miles an hour when using social media. My best advice is to be extremely careful with your brand, even if it takes an extra 60 seconds to do some rudimentary research.

Faith in humanity: at least partially restored. Thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Aurora, CO.

 

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  • http://twitter.com/MWritesMedia MeganWrites Media

    I think they didn’t tweet this to capitalize on the tragedy in Colorado. I really, honestly think and hope they did not know what happened. Looks like they’re going to have to do major damage control once they realize this. Then again, it’s been an HOUR and the tweet is still up. Sigh.

    • http://twitter.com/RizzoTees Chris Reimer

      I do hope you’re right. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/denise.griffitts Denise Griffitts

    It looks more to me like a scheduled tweet and they just forgot or didn’t realize that it was out there.

    • http://twitter.com/RizzoTees Chris Reimer

      I am not sure you can really schedule a tweet around a current trending topic. Someone saw it trending this morning and decided, for whatever reason, to do the tweet.

  • http://twitter.com/Nick314 Nick Bankhead

    Have they offered an apology?

    • http://twitter.com/RizzoTees Chris Reimer

      I have not seen one. It was tweeted pretty recently

  • Bethany Prange

    Surely it had to be a mistake, right? Not that I don’t think some people would love to capitalize on tragedy. . . But man – how could you think that this would go over in a positive way?

  • Grant

    You can’t fix stupid

    • http://twitter.com/RizzoTees Chris Reimer

      But Grant, I’m trying…. :-0

  • http://newenglandmultimedia.com/ Michelle Quillin

    Let’s not spread this story, and instead give the tweeter the benefit of the doubt. I’d rather assume that he or she hadn’t seen the news yet, and didn’t realize Aurora is the site of a massacre. 

    On my private Facebook profile, I saw wonderful young people talking about seeing The Dark Knight, and never mentioning the shooting. Just now, some of them are starting to talk about it, and expressing anxiety about the tragedy. 

    • http://twitter.com/RizzoTees Chris Reimer

      It is entirely possible that this was an honest mistake.

      As far as marketing goes, it was incredibly sloppy. All you have to do is see WHY #Aurora was trending. So even if it was an honest mistake, marketers and professional communicators have something to learn here

      • http://newenglandmultimedia.com/ Michelle Quillin

        Oh, absolutely! When I see something trending, I check it out, at least out of curiosity. 

        I’m glad this was an oversight. 

      • http://www.3hatscommunications.com/blog/ Davina K. Brewer

        That’s why this is so offensive. If you’re going to try to trend jack, rules 1,3, 6 and 8 are pretty clear about knowing WHY something is trending to be damn sure it fits the brand. This was careless, reckless and flat out lazy IMO, as is their ‘oops, we didn’t know better’ excuse. It’s someone’s job to know better. FWIW.

  • http://www.facebook.com/hafizhuda Hafiz Huda

    They issued about 6 tweets apologizing. Things move so fast and a wrong tweet brings down an onslaught on a brand. I’m pretty sure Celeb Boutique doesn’t follow major news trends.

    • http://twitter.com/RizzoTees Chris Reimer

      In this case, the right move is to ascertain why Aurora was trending. That’s so easy to do. Things always trend for a reason. It is ill-advised to jump in with your similarly named product without knowing details. 

  • http://twitter.com/michaeltomko Michael Tomko

    They have since apologized for the insensitive tweets. They are not based in the US, evidently, and weren’t yet aware of the situation.

    • http://twitter.com/RizzoTees Chris Reimer

      apology added to the blog post. I feel like it was sincere. I was hoping it was an honest mistake

  • http://www.atomicdust.com/ Danielle Hohmeier

    I’d love to think this is just a mistake. Someone that hadn’t heard the news yet and just posted away, unknowing. 

    But if you are smart enough to check what’s trending to use in your tweet…. it makes me think you are someone that knows how to use Twitter and would have noticed all the stories on this. 

    Did you see – “@NRA_Rifleman Good morning, shooters. Happy Friday! Weekend plans?”

    • http://twitter.com/RizzoTees Chris Reimer

      that tweet is even grosser

  • http://twitter.com/tiffanyannweber Tiffany Weber

    A company with no clue on Social Media – even their apology is broken into several tweets. When reading the “stream” it’s hacked and makes them look worse in my opinion …

  • http://www.rizzotees.com/ Chris @ Rizzo Tees

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