What can you do as a business to make sure you don’t offend on social media?

Coming up with a campaign idea isn’t the easiest, there is a lot you have to consider. You have to think about your audience, what you want to sell, and how you are going to present it.

Some companies can get it right, whereas others can get it so, so wrong.

Take The London Dungeon for example…

We know, they wanted to be a bit outrageous for Valentine’s, and seeing as it is the London Dungeon, it wasn’t necessarily going to be romantic. But it’s safe to say, their campaign did offend. They made jokes on issues that really shouldn’t be joked about. End of story.

This does bring back the point of thinking about what would suit your audience. Maybe London Dungeon thought that the audience would appreciate the dark sense of humour, but instead they upset them. They ended up being called out for being “sexiest and tasteless” and if you saw the jokes, you would begin to see why…

That brings us to our first tip of making a campaign! Try not to post anything too controversial and perhaps stick to something that is a bit more safe… Most importantly, try not to offend the audience! You want them to be interested in the campaign you are running, so don’t put them off!

In the end, they had to apologise of course!

You also need to consider which events are appropriate for your company.

Not necessarily the fun, national day ones, but more the political ones that may have gotten the world shook and started trending. It may seem like a good PR stunt to jump in on the conversation, however, depending on who you are, it might just seem a little inappropriate.

Of course, some companies feel that connecting with the current events can make you seem more “human” and hence more likeable, but just for safe keeps, maybe stay away from that!

This does depend on what your company has to offer. If you are someone like Starbucks, commenting on issues to do with race it is almost guaranteed you’ll offend someone! We think that if you feel strongly about a topic, maybe just stick to your personal profile…

Of course, if you do ever end up accidentally offending your customers, you need to apologise.

But, yet again, this is something that takes some thought… Simply sending a generic reply would not only look insensitive, but it can make you look as if you had no idea what caused the upset. A bit like when you ask a misbehaving toddler to say sorry.

This, in theory, is where you try to regain your reputation and undo all the damage you have caused! You want to be as sincere as you can and show that you have some understanding as to why you have caused outrage.

If there has been a huge uproar with many people commenting, a good idea might just be to create a new post with the apology. If you decide to respond to everyone, you might find that they become repetitive and generic. This is something you want to avoid!

Your voice is the voice of the company too! So think twice about what you want to say.

Do you think your “voice” is important for campaigns? Let us know in the comments below…