It's been well documented that an F-bomb went out on the corporate Chrysler account. The account was ran by an agency called New Media Strategies and the guy handling the account was Scott Bartosiewicz, a 28 year-old Detroit native. Scott was apparently furstrated while in traffic one morning, logged into what he thought was his personal Twitter account and let off a little steam. The Tweet ended up going out on the @ChryslerAutos account instead and was immediately amplified by the folks who follow Chrysler. Imagine being one of the first people to read that tweet. Priceless. What's been interesting is how this incident has spilled over and into a debate on social media, PR and branding.  Let's break it down and see if can come up with a few takeaways.

Social Media Management

Scott clearly made a mistake and did not intentionally send this Tweet out in spite off Chrysler. However, I think anybody who works in advertising, media or marketing and has a customer facing position can learn something from this. Personally, I don't think this would ever be acceptable coming from a personal account. I'm not saying that you need to be completely sterile with your content but using foul language, to me, is useless. Furthermore, poking fun at your hometown is usually a bad idea. Even if you're trying to be ironic or funny. There is little room to interpret tone in tweets, just like in email and so people will judge your words for what they are - your thoughts.   Clearly this incident is evidence of that.

Chrysler and its Brand

Chrysler is now under the media microscope and for all of the wrong reasons. The timing is really lousy for them, especially after they've tried to re-brand with a mantra of rebirth. We all saw the Super Bowl spot with Eminem and how they are trying to parlay the rebirth of his career into a metaphor for the Chrysler brand. I was on board with it too, still kinda am. But boy it sure seems like the Eminem thing is backfiring simply due to the fact that Eminem uses incredibly explicit lyrics in his music.  Couple Eminem's rough reputation with this recent Twitter  incident and Chrysler looks and feels more like a record label than an auto manufacturer.  They have not seemed to skip a beat however, at least on Twitter and continue to engage with followers using the service. I scrolled through their timeline and there are no mentions of any of this. Clearly they are trying to just get over it and starve the echo chamber by not throwing more fuel on the fire with commentary on the situation. (Speaking of situation, did anyone see Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino on the Donald Trump Roast the other night on Comedy Central? Man that was hard to watch...)

Chrysler is also getting a little backlash from social media strategists who think that brands should never outsource their social media voice to a 3rd party. I was actually pretty shocked to find out that they would do this too, let alone allow a 28 year old to run the account directly and access it from his phone.  At the agency I work at, we always advise clients to handle social media in-house. This ensures that your content is authentic and most of all, in-line with your brand voice. Furthermore, it protects you legally and can help avoid mishaps like this one. I presume that a lot of brands are looking at this and re-considering the agency relationships they have. There are probably meetings taking place right now at Fortune 500 companies around the globe, discussing how to rethink their approach to social media.

So What Are The Takeaways?

• Be cognizant of your language and the content you share via social media sites like Twitter. Especially if you work in an industry where people pay attention to what you say via social media. An example is working for an advertising agency.
• Social Media should be owned and managed by the brand, in-house. This will ensure that the content shared is authentic and relevant and will prevent mishaps like this one.
• Aligning your brand with a suspect hip-hop artist has its risks.

All-in-all I think Scott Bartosiewicz is good people. A local news station in Detroit caught-up with him and did a quick interview which I've embedded below for your viewing pleasure. In the video Scott agrees with his punishment and mentions that Chrysler did what it had to do. He handles it all with class and does not take a shot at anyone (except for Tweetdeck) and seems to be pretty calm and collected given the fact that he's now unemployed. I'm willing to bet that he learned his lesson from this one and despite the negative publicity he's getting, will find gainful employment pretty quickly. If nothing else, he'd be a solid consultant to help teach brands what not to do when using social media ,or, an excellent link-builder who helps brands "go against the grain" and build their SEO value on backlinks from provocative stories such as this one.  Ha!