Making Tweets & Sausage

Ambrose Bierce, the 19th century journalist and author once compared a lawsuit to a machine where “You go into (it) as a pig and come out of as a sausage.”

Let’s hope that is not the fate of Chicago resident Amanda Bonnen who is being sued by her landlord for the high offense of complaining about her digs on Twitter. It was only a matter of time.

According to the Chicago Sun Times, Horizon Group Management takes exception to this Bonnen tweet: “Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay."

A Horizon spokesperson told the Sun-Times the company hadn’t talked with Bonnen about her post, nor had anyone asked her to remove the comment.

“We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization,” he said, noting that the company manages 1,500 apartments in Chicago and has a good reputation it wants to preserve.

Horizon also responds that Bonnen filed a lawsuit first, but that’s irrelevant when it comes to Horizon’s claim of slander for a tweet.

Every company has a duty to protect its reputation just as fiercely as it does any other asset. However, suing a person for expressing an opinion on Twitter or any other social network site is not the way to defend yourself. From a brand and reputation point of view, that’s just about the worst thing you can do, unless you want to be a brand whose core value is intimidation.

Companies who truly care about their brand and reputation must join the social conversation. Listen. Respond with facts. Agree to disagree if necessary. And if you screwed up, admit it, apologize, fix it, and learn from the experience.

That’s a lot easier and cheaper than making sausage.

What do you think?

For more about brand and reputation protection in a digital world, visit C2M2 Associates or contact me at james.lee@c2m2a.com.