Appropriately titled “Red Cross Jumps on the Charlie Sheen Bandwagon”, the article states that the American Red Cross twitted the trending topic, #tigerblood. Charlie Sheen is an actor who recently has received numerous media coverage for his recent outrageous behavior. Here is the tweet the American Red Cross referenced Charlie Sheen’s infamous ‘tiger blood’:
Despite complaints that eventually led to the removal of this tweet, the article states that the American Red Cross received a slight increase in their donations. While The Networked Nonprofit taught us to leverage trending topics, it also spoke of nonprofits enforcing a social media policy. If American Red Cross has a social media policy, they did not disclose the policy on their website. Instead they have a social media section on the website that explains their decision to use social media.
Overall, the wrong tweet could damage the perception of a nonprofit. However, the right tweet could provide more exposure and support for a nonprofit. American Red Cross walked a fine with this one tweet. Despite a slight increase in donations, was it worth the organization’s reputation to be at-risk for using #tigerblood ? Would enforcing a social media policy have made a difference?
It’s unfortunate that certain public figures, celebrities, and pop culture events attain great public attention (ex. the Final Four, and the money-generating enterprise know as NCAA basketball. Consider watching a recent Frontline documentary on this very subject: http://video.pbs.org/video/1862426436. The whole episode is worth a watch, which has segments on Chinese artist/activist Ai Weiwei and imprisoned US Army soldier Bradley Manning.). They present immense distractions from necessary issues, weakening the social fabric while reinforcing regression (and the status quo, with its uneven resource/opportunity distribution). Though it is certainly tiring to perpetually contemplate long-standing social dilemmas, disasters (natural/man-made), dysfunctional governance, etc., the alternative is to become passive, less-than-sapient bodies. Sure, there is a happy medium between dedication and amusement, but we should not skew the balance in favor of the latter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5diMImYIIA).
ReplyDeleteThe Red Cross tweet displays poor taste and a general lack of thought. I concur, in that such slips may adversely affect public perceptions of an organization. Still, people make mistakes.
What can administrators do to avoid these significant mistakes without micro-managing, scrutinizing staff decision, and thus reducing confidence in personnel? It goes without mentioning, some administrators slip too. Shouldn’t we all naturally have high levels of ethical responsibility? Should we not strive for this? Is there a pill for this yet? A topical treatment? Can we save us from ourselves?