What the biggest social media blunders have taught us

These events may be so 2011, but could happen again tomorrow—or today. Consider yourself warned.

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Advertising Age chronicled the top social media blunders of 2011. The list is entertaining and disheartening. Entertaining because of the shenanigans and idiotic social media mistakes committed by some very smart people. And, disheartening because businesses considering social media may unduly focus on the blunders and ignore the benefits.

I’ll take a moment to speculate “why” the blunders happened and how businesses can learn from their less fortunate brethren’s mistakes.

Dropping the “F” bomb

The blunder: A New Media Strategies employee mistakenly skewered Detroit drivers from the @ChryslerAutos Twitter account. Although the tweet was caught and deleted within minutes, the damage to a career and a high-prestige social media account was done. New Media Strategies fired the employee and Chrysler fired New Media Strategies.

Why it happened: The scuttlebutt is that this employee managed his personal and client accounts with the same Twitter management tool. A small lapse in attention easily took his personal tweet and broadcasted it to the world.

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