During the Super Bowl, this tweet from JC Penney went viral:
Toughdown Seadawks!! Is sSeattle going toa runaway wit h this???
— JCPenney (@jcpenney) February 3, 2014
Which opened up some really hilarious responses, like this one from Kia Motors:
Hey @jcpenney need a designated driver?
— Kia Motors America (@Kia) February 3, 2014
So what did JC Penney do? They didn’t quickly delete the tweet as there was nothing inappropriate about it, but instead offered a reason why the message had so many errors.
Oops…Sorry for the typos. We were #TweetingWithMittens. Wasn’t it supposed to be colder? Enjoy the game! #GoTeamUSA pic.twitter.com/e8GvnTiEGl
— JCPenney (@jcpenney) February 3, 2014
The ironic thing is why would JC Penney even delete the initial tweet? With over 23,000 Retweets and 10,000 Favourites, it probably was one of their most viral tweets they had ever shared from their account. It definitely brought attention to the company and made a “business” seem human (since a person runs an account) in the way that they admitted their mistake and poked fun at themselves.
The thing that I quickly related to in this post is the number of educators that ask the question, “What if I make a mistake and then it goes viral?”
Well what happens when you make a mistake in your school? Do you do everything to hide it or do you take ownership and move forward? There is a difference between making a mistake and being inappropriate and if it is a mistake, similar to the one that was made by JC Penney, taking ownership sometimes gives an educator more credibility than not making a mistake in the first place. Showing the humility that we can all screw up and learn from it, says a lot. Trying to cover up a mistake says something as well.
