An Uber bot blunder and a Chase ‘motivational’ gaffe yield key lessons
The high-profile brands have big Twitter followings, so any missteps—automated or at the hands of a human—will be hugely magnified. Here are precautions social media teams can take.
Your social media account is a crucial public face of your brand.
Users believe your tweets are representative of your leadership, the product of organizational consensus, and carefully crafted and vetted messages. Mistakes will be met with fury.
Chase and Uber felt that online wrath as two separate Twitter mistakes led to widespread backlash.
The companies’ blunders highlight discrete problems for social media managers: robot security and human error.
In Uber’s case, a loophole in the code for its customer service reply bot allowed a Twitter user to trick the program into posting a racial slur. For Chase, a human user tried to jump on a hashtag trend, but instead offended some customers.
Let’s look at the lessons the tweets offer for brand managers and PR pros when they try to reach out to consumers on social media.
Uber’s robot breakdown
Uber found itself in hot water after a Twitter troll was able to trick its customer service reply bot into posting the n-word. Uber quickly apologized, but many were ready to skewer the company.
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