They say a week is a long time in politics, but it must have been a particularly slow moving seven days for Labour MP Emily Thornberry. One tweet was all it took to end her frontbench political career. Pundits now claim the single slip on social media has caused untold damage to her party’s prospects at next year’s general election. What a thing to stew on as her diary slowly empties and she’s shuffled out of sight and out of mind by spin doctors, whips and other assorted flunkies.
I have some sympathy for Thornberry. What happened to her was a risk that every professional takes when they open themselves up to the benefits and the potential costs of social media at work..
Thornberry is not the first to fall, and she won’t be the last. But a look at the top public sector blunders can teach some important lessons that might help prevent you or your organisation becoming the next victim of a social media stumble.
1. Think carefully before you click
The first lesson comes courtesy of the British Embassy. In August the Washington embassy decided to mark the 200th anniversary of the burning of the White House by British troops by rigging up a cake of the presidential seat with live sparklers around it. What obviously started as a lighthearted, friendly nod to the history of our two nations went down less well among the US patriots of Twitter.
If there’s ever any room for doubt about the meaning, implications or context of your message – or if you suspect some people just won’t get a joke you’ve penned – do not press send.
2. Check, check and check
In 2010, Croydon council was forced to suspend its Twitter account after its user accidentally published a comment attacking the abilities of an Evening Standard journalist, claiming “a squirrel could have run rings” around them. Highly embarrassing and unprofessional for the council, and a result of a textbook error. The sender had intended to send a private message but, in their exasperation, fired off a public tweet revealing their personal opinions on behalf of the council.
Writing at speed can also lead to the dreaded autocorrect disaster, which left Wrexham council describing its executive board as its “pathetic board”. It’s so easy to make a silly mistake when in a rush: always check it.
3. Don’t just delegate, train your staff
Many social media blunders in the public sector are caused by a lack of interest or understanding from senior members of staff. If they don’t take it seriously enough, the job of running Twitter or Facebook feeds can end up falling to junior team members, interns or freelancers – often without sufficient training or experience in online reputation management.
In 2012, freelance press officer Sam Masters caused a headache for his employer, Lambeth council, when he suggested on his personal twitter feed that Streatham High Street should be given a “napalm” treatment. Not only tasteless, but also in direct contradiction to his day job in which he was paid to promote the authority and spread the message about its local improvement work. Masters left the authority as a result. A simple bit of training about being an online ambassador, even in your personal digital interactions, could have saved this own-goal.
4. Don’t dismiss social media issues as second class
When Salford Central police station, part of Greater Manchester police, took to Twitter to advise citizens struggling to cope with the impact of social media they got the approach spectacularly wrong. The officers told anyone facing bullying or harassment online that the first step to solving the problem was to delete their social media account. Wrong answer. The police were accused of blaming the victims of crime, and created their own social media storm in the process. As in crime, so in the business of the wider public sector. Issues raised on or involving social media are not second class to those in real life. Treat them equally, and you should stay out of trouble.
5. Always be honest – because there’s nowhere to hide
When it goes wrong, the most important thing is to own up and apologise as quickly as possible. Attempting to run away from the problem never works, as Walsall council found in 2012. Its feed had been used by a member of staff to poke fun at the then education secretary Michael Gove, complete with the politically-loaded hashtag #saveusfromtheposhboys. Surprisingly enough, the city’s Conservative administration failed to see the funny side. Worst of all the council’s immediate response was not to say sorry but to claim the account had been hacked. It later had to back down and investigate its own communications team. So whatever the error, hold your hands up.
One positive note: former Walsall communications head Dan Slee reports that, once the error was accepted, forgiveness was quick to follow. “I was very struck how the Walsall web community rallied around us when things had gone wrong,” he says.
Hannah Fearn is contributing editor to the Guardian Public Leaders Network. She tweets at @hannahfearn
This is part of our social media week, from 23 to 29 November. We will have lots of content about the challenges and benefits of using social networks at work in the public sector, as well as tips to get started and get ahead. Join the debate via @Guardianpublic
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