Creating a Crisis and Cleaning it Up

You may have heard that Attorney General Eric Holder resigned, but did you know President Obama resigned as well? Just kidding, but that’s what happened according to a tweet from the New York Times First Draft Twitter account. Last Thursday someone from the @nytpolitics account posted this tweet: 

 

First Draft later posted this correction tweet:

However, the damage had already been done. In a world where everything functions in real time, it didn’t take long for people to start responding to the mistake with jokes and jabs about the President. Even though @nytpolitics made a glaring error, it did the best thing it could do by correcting the mistake. 

Let this be a lesson in crisis communication for us all. Rule number one: If you make a mistake, admit to your mistake and fix it in a timely manner. Remaining silent in a crisis for too long is never good PR. If the New York Times First Draft had allowed its first tweet to stay up for an extensive period of time, it could have created even more problems for itself. Remaining silent in a crisis can cause panic among your customers/audience and damage your reputation. 

This can also serve as a lesson in the importance of proof reading your work, especially in the social media world. An incident like this could have easily been prevented if whoever drafted this tweet had taken a few extra minutes to proof read it or have had someone else look over it. Being proactive and catching a mistake before it happens might take some extra time up front, but it will benefit you and your organization in the long run. 

New York Times First Draft wouldn’t be the first big name news source to have a social media mishap, and it certainly won’t be the last. However, anytime an organization or company has a crisis it is important and beneficial to access why the incident happened in the first place and what can be done to prevent it in the future. The next time you find yourself in the middle of a social media mishap like this one by the New York Times just remember that every makes mistakes, the important part is how you react to them.