Think Before You Tweet!

by Prasant Naidu on May 23, 2022

in Insights

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When I was a kid my mother used to always tell me - think before you talk. In today’s times, I am sure that parents will be telling their kids to think before they tweet. But I suppose Vijay Mallya didn’t share this word of advice with his son Sidhartha Mallya otherwise he wouldn’t have tweeted “The Controversial Tweet.” A tweet which not only gained brickbats from the Twitter community but also had a case slapped on him. Victim Zohal Hamid slapped a case of defamation on Sidhartha Mallya for the tweet. Since the case was already going on in the court, Sidhartha’s revelation to his more than 2.5 lakh  followers was an immature act. But this brings us to the question that shouldn’t we think before we tweet.

The controversial tweets

Whether there would be a case or not is not yet known but a Twitter outburst has definitely occurred. Last year, Suhel Seth was dragged into a controversy where ITC had slapped a case and damage charges on his  derogatory tweets. Though nothing much was discussed after the incident. A possible out of court settlement perhaps?

Another landmark case, which for the first  time, saw the court delivering judgment based on tweets - the famous case between Lalit Modi and Chris Cairns. Lalit Modi during his peak in IPL, had accused Chris Cairns of indulging in unfair practices such as match fixing, etc. The tweets that were sent out by Modi not only damaged the reputation of Chris Cairns but were also baseless. End result the court cleared Chris from all charges and slapped a hefty fine on Modi over his tweets. If these examples were not enough then we have one more case of outburst between Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor, which also opened the lid of Pandora’s box. The controversy not only opened up some hidden truths of the cash rich game but also led to the downfall of Modi. All these examples have two things in common:

  • You can’t tweet anything that may malign a person or a brand since it is a free world. Today online reputation is a matter of concern for everyone.
  • It could be a punishable act too.

What do brands need to learn from this incident?

Brands need to be more active not only in building a community but also monitoring it’s online reputation. It can’t just close it’s eyes on what are people or its employees talking about, since it won’t take much time for a small incident to go viral. Remember bad news always travels faster! With this a brand should also educate its employees about the do’s and don’ts of social media. Besides this a company should also invest time in formulating a social media policy and educating the employees why this is important in today’s times. I think brands should build such kind of processes in its organization as it minimizes the risk of online reputation. And also the employee is aware that she can’t post or tweet anything about her employer for the sake of fun.

So do you think before you tweet or post content on social media? Or do you believe that since you are not an influential person, the brand would care less about your content?

Slider image courtesy: Dondy Razon

Prasant Naidu

Founder and Blogger at Lighthouse Insights. Loves to experiment in social media and believes social media is a game changer for SME's.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/kunalkantsen Kunalkant Sen

    Excellent article Prasant. Unfortunately free and public system become a medium of outcry and foul language. 

    • http://lighthouseinsights.in/ Prasant Naidu

      Thanks and we cant keep doing this anymore :)

  • http://vijayspaul.tumblr.com Vijay S Paul

    In a way I still feel the brand would care less about me if am not as influential as they would want to care. But again, it depends a lot on the brand too.

    For example, I once had a complaint regarding my phone balance being decreased regularly without any valid reason. I complained to Reliance Communications via phone calls and tweet, but nothing was done. Only after me calling them for the 3rd or 4th time did they take the first step. Eventually it was solved.At the same time, for a less media-centric brand like Hindustan Petroleum, I mailed them on non receipt of gas cylinder even after 2 months of booking! What 10-15 phone calls couldn’t do, one mail did and I got the cylinder in 2 days!!
    So, in a way, it depends a whole lot on the brand too. Whether they consider only the important people important, or everyone.

    • http://lighthouseinsights.in/ Prasant Naidu

      It also depends on the agency :) I get what you say and it depends on how the brand takes his customer for. For example these days brands on twitter are only bothered about influential people ;) but saying that brands have now started paying attention to ORM. Hope with time we will have more of them

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