The recent Earthquake off the coast of Japan and following Tsunami has been terrible for all who have been caught up in it – both in the affected areas and beyond. But who would have thought that Microsoft would try and use it to promote Bing?
Well, maybe even Microsoft weren’t in on it. Their effort to raise money for victims of the quake was posted via Bing’s official Twitter feed on March 12, and read: “How you can #SupportJapan – [link to site]. For every retweet @bing will give $1 to Japan quake victims, up to $100k.”
Within six hours, the company apologised for the tweet by saying: “We apologize the tweet was negatively perceived. Intent was to provide an easy way for people to help Japan. We have donated £100k.”
Those that perceived the tweets negatively will argue that Microsoft should have simply donated the money in the first place – and possibly even contributed more, such is the depth of their pockets. Such a quick retraction and apology suggests a PR gaffe of epic proportions on Microsoft’s end, and people have been quick to vilify the company for a crass approach and accuse it of using a terrible tragedy to market a search engine.
Although, from another point of view, you could argue that the tweet got lost in translation and that the fellows over at Bing did well to retract it as quickly as they did. It can be hard to get a lot of information across to the public in only 140 characters. But whatever the intentions where, it underlines the philosophy to think before you tweet!
When using social media in an SEO campaign, when you write your tweet don’t send it into the wide world immediately. Read it back to yourself – does it make sense? Does it say more than you might mean it to? Be careful when you tweet. As Bing has found out to its peril, a single tweet has the power to cause uproar.
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