They say that if you live by social media, you need to be prepared to die by social media (speaking figuratively, of course).

David Henderson, a former CBS journalist who writes a fabulous blog and is the author of The Media Saavy Leader, recently blogged about an unfortunate situation that highlights the speed at which social media can spread news.

It seems that a member of Ketchum public relations in Atlanta, Georgia was flying into Memphis, Tennessee to make a presentation on social media to one of Ketchum’s largest and most important clients, FedEx.

Upon arrival in the Memphis airport, this employee Tweeted this message to his followers:

“True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, ‘I would die if I had to live here.’”

The problem was that a member of the FedEx team was following the Ketchum employee. When the FedEx employee read the Tweet he was, well, not impressed.

Here’s how an employee from FedEx responded, as reported by David Henderson:

“Mr. (Name Withheld), If I interpret your post correctly, these are your comments about Memphis a few hours after arriving in the global headquarters city of one of your key and lucrative clients, and the home of arguably one of the most important entrepreneurs in the history of business, FedEx founder Fred Smith. Many of my peers and I feel this is inappropriate. We do not know the total millions of dollars FedEx Corporation pays Ketchum annually for the valuable and important work your company does for us around the globe. We are confident however, it is enough to expect a greater level of respect and awareness from someone in your position as a vice president at a major global player in your industry. A hazard of social networking is people will read what you write. Not knowing exactly what prompted your comments, I will admit the area around our airport is a bit of an eyesore, not without crime, prostitution, commercial decay, and a few potholes. But there is a major political, community, religious, and business effort underway, that includes FedEx, to transform that area. We’re hopeful that over time, our city will have a better “face” to present to visitors. Everyone participating in today’s event, including those in the auditorium with you this morning, just received their first paycheck of 2009 containing a 5% pay cut … which we wholeheartedly support because it continued the tradition established by Mr. Smith of doing whatever it takes to protect jobs. Considering that we just entered the second year of a U.S. recession, and we are experiencing significant business loss due to the global economic downturn, many of my peers and I question the expense of paying Ketchum to produce the video open for today’s event; work that could have been achieved by internal, award-winning professionals with decades of experience in television production. Additionally, with all due respect, to continue the context of your post; true confession: many of my peers and I don’t see much relevance between your presentation this morning and the work we do in Employee Communications.”

Ouch!

The lesson? Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media tools are all wonderful. But if you’re going to use them for business, remember that they can be read by just about anybody, including your friends, your family and, perhaps worst of all, your clients.

Follow Up 1/22/09 am: The 60 Second Marketer Team would like to acknowledge that we all make mistakes and that most of us have a story similar to this one in our business history. It’s for that reason that we’ve left the name of the Ketchum employee out of this article. We’re all human, after all.

Additional Follow Up 1/22/09 pm: The latest word is that the Ketchum employee’s Tweet was because of an intolerant comment he received from someone in Memphis upon his landing. For a 360 degree understanding of the story, you can click here.

The story continues 1/23/09 am: David Henderson, who originally brought our attention to this story, has an excellent post on his blog outlining the additional events that happened on this story. If you’re interested in a behind-the-scenes look at how Ketchum and FedEx responded to the story, check it out. It’s also worth noting that the statement from the FedEx employee above was originally reported as having come from FedEx Corporate. It turns out that it was a statement from a FedEx employee which was not necessarily sanctioned by FedEx. (Not having a clear set of employee communications guidelines is an additional issue FedEx needs to address.)

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009, 7:22 am   |   Google, Levi Strauss, Social Marketing  |  RSS feed |  Respond  |  Trackback