Are you being careful?

Apropos Kanika Datta’s ‘Accounting for social media’ (April 20), no discussion on PR disasters caused by social media would be complete without mention of revolting Youtube posts by two Domino’s employees that showed them dressing pizzas after picking noses. The incident proved that not reacting and waiting for crisis to blow over doesn’t work as consumers kept posting questions about what the company was doing to maintain hygiene quality of its preparations.

Delta Airline’s tweet congratulating the US team when they beat Ghana 2-1 in the 2014 World Cup was a comedy of errors. The tweet depicted scores with the Statue of Liberty (representing US) and a giraffe (representing Ghana) in the background. After being pointed out that there are no giraffes in that African country, the company went into damage-control mode which proved an even bigger gaffe as the errant tweet was mentioned as ‘precious’ tweet instead of ‘previous’ tweet.

Even more interesting was the explanation offered for inclusion of a Pakistani ex-air force officer's photo in a national campaign for the girl child. The spin given by the then minister for women and child development Krishna Teerath was that it showed our concern for the girl child on a global level!

Snapdeal seem to be an odd victim of social media beatings as they get buffeted for no fault of theirs — first when users uninstalled their app in the wake of Aamir Khan’s infamous intolerance remark and now after Snapchat boss’ ‘poor country’ remark (since disowned).

Ajay Tyagi Guwahati