What you need to do to avoid making a career-ending mistake on Twitter
ELON Musk and Stephanie Rice were both lucky to have narrowly escaped the same fate as Roseanne Barr. Here’s the mistake they made and how to avoid doing the same.
JUST like reality television makes everyday people stars for a brief moment; social media allows individuals to broadcast their life as if they were celebrities.
The same platforms allow actual celebrities to share their own personal lives and communicate with followers in real-time instead old fashioned letters posted to a generic fan mail address.
This creates what people perceive to be a genuine bond with their idols.
Public relations expert Dr Katharina Wolf said while Facebook is great for discussions within an existing community and Instagram is a fantastic visual medium, Twitter is quickly becoming the platform of choice for communicators and influencers looking to engage with audiences.
“In a nutshell: it’s fast, it’s topical and posts are visible beyond your core audiences/followers,” she said.
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The downside of Twitter is the aggressively fast nature of the platform, which can spell trouble for those prone to posting before thinking.
“As new cycles speed up further, everyone is under pressure to provide the fastest, wittiest and most popular commentary or reply. It’s not sustainable,” she said
Managing director of Wilkinson Group Peter Wilkinson specialises in Crisis PR and said celebrities slip up when they don’t respect the medium.
“There’s simply no excuse for even accidentally tweeting ‘pedo-guy’,” he said, referring to Elon Musk’s Twitter meltdown over the Thai minisub rescue fiasco.
“It’s no different to being quoted in papers or on TV — think first, quote second.”
Director of crisis management PR firm Sefiani Nick Owens said the very nature of Twitter posed risks that could be avoided, but admits this isn’t always the easiest task.
“The public is pretty polarised around issues these days and sometimes innocent comments are taken out of context and go viral, requiring a lot of backtracking later,” he said.
“The social media record is permanent too; reputations damaged can take a long time to repair, and mistakes can come back to bite years later.”
Case in point: The aftermath that followed Roseanne Barr calling former Obama presidential aide Valerie Jarrett a “Planet of the Apes” child.
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Barr initially blamed the sleeping pill Ambien for her tweet and said her comments had nothing to do with Jarrett’s African-American decent, rather it was condemnation of anti-Semitism in regards to the nuclear agreement from which President Trump withdrew.
However, ABC cancelled her sitcom Roseanne following the outrage from the tweet — the broadcaster later announced it would continue the show, but without the disgraced comedian.
Mr Owens also pointed to Zac Efron’s 2016 tweet when he said he was grateful for two things: Martin Luther King Jr and his 10 million Instagram followers.
“The actor was slammed for his insensitivity, and rightly so, he quickly issued an apology in response to the onslaught of criticism,” he said.
Mr Wilkinson believes the safest way for celebrities and prominent influencers to avoid finding trouble was to have a PR team and lawyers helping with posts.
“It’s no different from appearing on TV or in print,” he said.
“Every celeb should bounce ideas on topics as communicating a concept is always improved with a second opinion,” he said.
“And major celebs need someone junior to monitor what’s being said about them or their cause.”
Mr Owens agrees.
“It’s also important to remember that the channels of celebrities are also often a commercial platform for them, a single Instagram post can be highly lucrative. A post from Selena Gomez is said to go for more than US$500,000 ($A677,500),” he said.
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“When a brand is paying that much it’s little wonder they would want a marketing or PR team to handle the content of the post.
“The important thing is authenticity — it’s better if the artist or celebrity’s posts don’t come across as filtered or contrived, savvy fans will spot this in a moment.”
He also said celebrities need to stand by controversial comments if it’s something that they are passionate about.
“If you genuinely meant what you said and it’s unpopular, you have to own it — sometimes celebrities actually want to take a controversial stance and it’s what they really believe,” he said.
Dr Wolf said authenticity was important, which is why she believes PR professionals should not be involved with influencers Twitter accounts.
“Gatekeeper controlled messages are typically bland and dated by the time they have gone through various layers of red tape,” she said.
“In particular within a celebrity context, audiences want to see content that’s raw, authentic and genuine — as opposed to a heavily polished marketing message.”
Dr Wolf warned that people should still be cautious with the content they share, but coming under fire for inappropriate tweets didn’t always have to be career ending like with Roseanne.
“We all make mistakes. If your bucket of goodwill is at least semi-filled, you audiences will be prepared to forgive you for your mistake, permitting that you apologise in a genuine manner and own up to your misstep,” she said.
Just look at comedian Wil Anderson who came under intense scrutiny for taking aim at stars including John Mayer, Rebecca Gibney, Dr Harry Cooper, Matt Preston, Eddie McGuire and Sigrid Thornton on Twitter during the 2010 Logie awards ceremony.
In one tweet he joked that Meldrum seemed to be affected by drugs.
“Molly says he has only been drinking water. Pills must be strong,” he wrote.
Since the event Anderson has seen his Twitter followers grow from 30,000 to more than 500,000, which suggests Twitter controversy doesn’t need to spell the end of your career.
“Audiences can be incredibly forgiving. Indeed, a misstep may make an individual far more authentic and hence likeable,” explained Dr Wolf.
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Mr Wilkinson agreed with the sentiment that mistakes make a person more ‘real’, but said it was no excuse for offending.
“With fame comes responsibility and the celebrities I know are keenly aware of that,” he said.
Australian comedian Catherine Deveny felt the repercussions of this “responsibility” after the Fairfax columnist was sacked after the same Logies for tweeting: ‘‘I do so hope Bindi Irwin gets laid’’. Bindi was just 12 years old at the time.
However, just like Anderson, Deveny has since bounced back and now has 37,000 followers on Twitter.
The same can be said for Olympic golden girl Stephanie Rice who came under fire for posting a homophobic tweet where she ridiculed the South African rugby team.
She was able to achieve redemption after breaking down in a press conference offering a wrenching apology.
Ruby Rose also found herself in trouble after she took aim at her Veronicas star girlfriend Jessica Origliasso’s twin sister, Lisa, suggesting she didn’t support their same-sex relationship.
The Orange Is The New Black superstar posted a message on Twitter following the “yes” results of the SSM vote with a blunt message to the pop singer.
Rose, 31, claimed that Lisa, 32, told them that they were “lucky they don’t get stoned to death like they do in other countries” in the past.
One user responded: “It is so pitiful from you to criticise Lisa but I suppose that we cannot wait better from you. Think about what you write before publishing it, that would be better. Be an adult and a responsible person because you advocate love but you show the opposite. Thank you.”
Rose then responded to the backlash, saying: “It’s an emotional day. I’m a human being and need to remind myself not to let the people below try to drag me down.”
Plus Size Fashion blogger Rosey Blair was another person to find herself in trouble after she swapped seats with a woman on a plane from New York to Dallas so that she could sit next to her boyfriend.
Blair proceeded to live-tweet as the lady who switched seats started to flirt with the stranger she moved next too, with the thread going viral.
The woman featured in the thread, who has chosen to remain anonymous, released a statement saying she was upset that her personal information had been widely distributed online, with strangers publicly discussing her private life based on patently false information.
“Without my knowledge or consent, other passengers photographed me and recorded my conversation with a seatmate. They posted images and recordings to social media, and speculated unfairly about my private conduct,” she told Business Insider.
“I have been doxxed, shamed, insulted and harassed. Voyeurs have come looking for me online and in the real world. I did not ask for and do not seek attention. #PlaneBae is not a romance — it is a digital-age cautionary tale about privacy, identity, ethics and consent.”
Blair since deleted the post and made a public apology.
Dr Wolf said the best way to deal with backlash on Twitter was to own up and apologise.
“The last think you want to do is to delete a comment and hope it will go away. The chances that someone has taken a screenshot are extremely high,” she said.
“Mistakes won’t simply go away. … and deleting content will only make matters worse. My advice: delete and explain why — own up to your mistake.”
Mr Wilkinson Every celeb should have an ‘crisis’ plan, so that when there’s a mistake it can be fixed before damage is done.
WILKINSON’S RULES TO KEEP YOU OUT OF TROUBLE:
• Don’t ever think you are God’s gift
• Don’t tweet while angry or drunk, or while walking or talking;
• Pause, check what you’ve written, and think twice before posting.
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