Breaking news!

The Plough Pub at Great Haseley in Oxfordshire has just fired their head chef, a mere 9 days before Christmas.

“How do you know this?” we hear you ask.

Well, when they fired their head chef they forgot that he looked after their Twitter account. Cue these tweets:

Plus, as they’ve been up there on Twitter for over 16 hours, we’re guessing he’s also changed the password so that the pub can’t remove them.

Moral of the story: use a professional! Or don’t fire the person who looks after your social media.  Or change the passwords before you fire them. Etc, etc, we’re sure there are loads more morals to this story!

WhenTwitter goes wrong for restaurants

This scenario is not as uncommon as you might think. Sure, firing the guy with Twitter password is a bit of a gaffe but there are a number of risks in giving a member or members of staff access to the account which represent your brand online. A tweet they meant to send from a different account, a drunk tweet, losing the device they have linked to the Twitter account are just some of the ways brands have had their reputations pretty much destroyed overnight.

Hiring a third party not only utilises specialist expertise but also create a mediator through which only corporate messages will be shared. It is, of course, in the best interest of the agency to maximise security and portray every client as well as possible.

If you choose not to outsource the social media management for your venue, ensure you have a social media policy and a crisis management plan in place. Just in case! This could well help you contain potentially brand-damaging exploits like this one. If there had been simple protocols in place, this would never have happened.

Read more about social media for pubs, restaurants and bars.