A homophobic tweet cost Australian Swimmer Stephanie Rice more than her contract with Jaguar last week.
After watching a spirited rugby match, the 22 year-old gold medallist chose to express herself poorly on Twitter by calling the opposing South African team/fans “f*****s.” This ignited an online and on-air firestorm from the LGBT community, fans and fellow athletes who quickly cried foul. Within hours, the eyebrow-raising tweet was picked up by mainstream media prompting Rice to apologize on her blog last week and on-air this week, but not before being dropped by Jaguar Australia.
Rice is picking up the pieces after what can only be surmised as a split-second decision turned “homophobic tweet heard round the world.”
A week has passed and the negative impact of Rice’s tweet is palpable by the bevy of devoted LGBT and media coverage. Searches for “Stephanie Rice” on Twitter still net an immediate avalanche of heated debates, all pointing to the handful of the now famous 59 letters.
Whether or not Rice’s words would have been picked up on another platform is debateable. However, she chose to use one home to 145 million users, one that consumers, thought-leaders and media crawl voraciously for information. It’s no surprise that 20 per cent of tweets – or roughly 83 messages per second – contain references to a product or brand. This is something to keep in mind considering the LGBT community has a long memory and won’t soon forget the homophobic tweet – or Jaguar Australia’s swift action.
Spokespeople (read: celebrities or social media newbies) on Twitter present one of the most potent of challenges for MAR/COMs. Massive PR budgets spent normally on media training or crisis PR often neglect social media entirely, highlighting a powder keg for anyone who has a client with access to the Internet (for business or personal purposes). Social media guidelines are becoming the norm for companies looking for their staff to play by the rules. Consider creating spokespeople guidelines.
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It’s amazing to see how the globalized social media impact the decisions of companies and their reputation. When the news hit Germany first most of the headlines sounded something like “Jaguar gets rid of Rice after homophobic comment”. Jaguar being the one acting swiftly got a huge bonus for doing so in the local LGBt community.