When Hashtag Turns Bashtag

[by Howard Fencl, APR]

You could see disaster coming. The New York Police Department dangled prime Internet troll bait on Twitter this week in an ill-conceived campaign that quickly backfired and spread hate posts to other police departments across the country. The department’s initial volley was a sincere attempt to promote good community relations:

“Do you have a photo w/a member of the NYPD? Tweet us & tag it #myNYPD. It may be featured on our Facebook.” The tweet was posted with a photo of two police officers with their arms around a smiling citizen.

In short order, critics began posting caustic tweets dripping with sarcasm (“Free massages from the #NYPD. What does YOUR Police Department offer? Tweet at #MyNYPD” with a photo of police aggressively cuffing a screaming suspect on the trunk of a cruiser).

We’ve seen this before. #McDStories spawned thousands of fingernail-in-burger-type posts; #ILoveWalgreens returned a similar litany of venom.

The common thread for all these misfires: lack of thorough planning. Organizations need a truth teller in the room when planning social media campaigns – someone to ask, “How might this turn bad for us? Could this instead hurt our brand?” List worst case responses you might get using your proposed hashtag. If too many come to mind, create a more specific hashtag that won’t invite sarcasm.

Frankly, you may need someone from outside your organization to offer an objective viewpoint. This may lead you to abandon the idea before it’s launched because Twitter might not be the right vehicle for your brand promotion. NYPD should use its Twitter page to push traffic to its Facebook page – which does an excellent job of showcasing the department’s good work in the community.

There’s not much NYPD can do at this point, other than wait out the furor and do a better job planning future campaigns. NYPD defends the campaign, saying an open, uncensored dialog is good for the community. While that may have been the goal of its Twitter campaign, so far #myNYPD is a self-inflicted wound that has done more harm than good to the department’s reputation.

We were interviewed on this issue on NPR’s Marketplace. Click here to listen.