Twit happens: 3 types of disastrous corporate tweets

As more and more companies ramp up their Twitter presence, the likelihood that something off-message will slip by the digital goalie goes up considerably.

The question is not whether your company will have to deal with a self-destructive tweet, but rather what kind of tweet it will be, and by whom.

There are three types of Twitter miscues that cause corporate heartburn (or worse):

Wrong pipe

This increasingly common mistake occurs when the administrator of the corporate Twitter account inadvertently sends a tweet from the company account instead of from his or her individual Twitter handle. As usage of tools like CoTweet (client) and Hootsuite soar, this is an increasingly likely scenario.

It has happened to me, as my awesome assistant Jess Ostroff once accidentally yelled at a company from my Twitter account instead of her own.

Most famously, this occurred about six weeks ago to the American Red Cross when one of its employees sent out this beauty:

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