Epicurious Becomes Latest Brand To Suffer Social Backlash From Tragedy-Related Tweets

If only Epicurious had been using Social Flow or Buffer, it might’ve avoided the headaches associated with social media’s latest tragedy-related faux pas. But it appears the food-lover’s website wasn’t using either of those social management services, and sent out a couple tweets on Tuesday that looked like an attempt at self-promotion in the aftermath […]

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If only Epicurious had been using Social Flow or Buffer, it might’ve avoided the headaches associated with social media’s latest tragedy-related faux pas.

But it appears the food-lover’s website wasn’t using either of those social management services, and sent out a couple tweets on Tuesday that looked like an attempt at self-promotion in the aftermath of a terrible event.

epicurious-tweets

Twitter user Thomas Powell seems to have been the first to notice (that’s his image above), and coverage on other websites has quickly picked up steam, as is always the case when brands take this route with their social media posts during tragedies.

After seeing the backlash on Twitter, Epicurious sent out more than a dozen direct apology tweets and ended with a public apology that said:

 

Tragedy = Social Media Screw-Up Waiting To Happen

This kind of thing has become so commonplace that when a tragedy happens, many people aren’t wondering if some brand is going to screw-up, but which one and when.

There was:

Epicurious wasn’t the first, and surely won’t be the last company guilty of what’s generally considered poor taste in marketing during national tragedies.

Buffer & SocialFlow Tried To Help

As soon as news spread Monday of the Boston Marathon bombings, my Twitter stream was filled with tweets from marketers urging brands to turn off their automated, pre-scheduled posts to avoid anything like what happened in the examples above.

Two social automation providers were part of that chorus.

Soon after the bombs went off, Buffer sent out a couple public tweets, along with numerous direct replies, telling users how to pause scheduled tweets.

 

Another social automation provider, SocialFlow, did the same for its users, but via email (screenshot below).

social-flow

There are numerous other social automation providers, and some may have also helped users with a reminder about turning off scheduled tweets or Facebook updates. Let us know in the comments if you know of similar messaging that went out yesterday or today.

What about Epicurious, you may be wondering? Did it see these messages? Probably not. A look at the company’s tweets shortly before the tragedy show that messages were being sent via Hootsuite.

epicurious-hootsuite

It’s certainly not Hootsuite’s fault in any way that Epicurious posted what it did, but we did contact the company to ask if they alerted users to the need for caution after Monday’s bombings.

A Hootsuite spokesperson told us that it “did not send out messaging to our entire global userbase yesterday after Boston Marathon’s incident – [but] our community and customer service teams were on their regular 24-hour support shifts to quickly assist anyone who reached out with questions on how to silence their existing scheduled messages.”

It’s not clear to me if today’s Epicurious tweets were pre-scheduled or not. But it is clear that they’re the latest example of the need to be extra careful on social media in light of breaking news.

Postscript: The original version of this article has been edited to correct what we believe is the original source of the screenshot showing Epicurious’ tweets.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Matt McGee
Contributor
Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.

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