The Pepto-Bismol social media team was trying, I’ll give them that much credit, but their recent engagement effort may have caused more harm than good. It certainly caused some notoriety. I’m just not sure it’s the notoriety that they wanted.
It’s quite unfortunate that Twitter doesn’t let you edit previously posted tweets. Oh how I wish they did. I’m sure many of you wish that they did. And I’m sure Pepto-Bismol wishes they allowed tweet editing as well. Here is the tweet that caused the Pepto-Bismol social media team a sour stomach.
The most awkward places to experience, diarrhea? Go.
— Pepto-Bismol (@Pepto) October 27, 2013
Now, I’m not one to call out grammatical errors. I’ve made quite a few myself. Too many to be pointing fingers at anyone, but people were very quick to jump on the ill-placed comma in the tweet.
@Pepto @danozzi DAT PUNCTUATION.
— Ben Morse (@BenMorse) October 27, 2013
“@Pepto: The most awkward places to experience, diarrhea? Go.” punctuation.
— Lawless (@PittGrandpa) October 27, 2013
This is mostly shocking and offensive because of the nonsense comma. || RT @Pepto: The most awkward places to experience, diarrhea? Go. — Jenna Bromberg (@jennabrom) October 27, 2013
This is mostly shocking and offensive because of the nonsense comma. || RT @Pepto: The most awkward places to experience, diarrhea? Go. — Jenna Bromberg (@jennabrom) October 27, 2013
This is mostly shocking and offensive because of the nonsense comma. || RT @Pepto: The most awkward places to experience, diarrhea? Go.
— Jenna Bromberg (@jennabrom) October 27, 2013
What’s worse: loose bowels or loose commas? RT @Pepto: The most awkward places to experience, diarrhea? Go.
— Damnhell Boooolake (@DCPlod) October 27, 2013
I love it when your audience gets witty and plays upon your mistakes and is forgiving. Check out this response which received a quick thumbs up by the Pepto team:
.@Pepto What’s with the comma? You should have used a colon 🙂
— scott (@bakerinCA) October 27, 2013
Personally, I was more taken aback by the question than the punctuation. Sure, they screwed the pooch grammatically, but most people obviously overlooked that faux-pas. I just couldn’t believe that Pepto-Bismol was asking people to engage about diarrhea! But obviously if you need Pepto, it’s likely you’ve used it when you’ve experienced the rumble below.
In that regard, they hit their target audience dead on. For those of you who think this was a tweet in bad taste, I have a question for you. When is a good time to have a discussion about diarrhea? Just how do you engage with people who are experiencing Montezuma’s revenge?
Furthermore, why are 5,000 people following Pepto-Bismol? You think they’re looking for t-shirts, concert tickets, or hamburger coupons? No!! The only reason one reaches for the pink stuff is to help stop the brown stuff!
So let’s be adults about this and not be trolls. Not only did the Pepto-Bismol team do the right thing by asking the diarrhea question, they didn’t hide after being called out for a grammatical error. They didn’t delete the original post. They openly acknowledged their mistake.
Speaking of awkward…punctuation misplacement can be so awkward. But still, not as awkward as diarrhea. Right?
— Pepto-Bismol (@Pepto) October 28, 2013
Now this wouldn’t be an objective post if it simply attempted to ignore the most obvious mistake that Pepto-Bismol made. While everyone focuses on the punctuation, there’s one major flaw in Pepto-Bismol’s social media. That being response time.
The original tweet with the bad comma placement was posted on October 27, 2013 at 1:30PM. The shitstorm (pun obviously intended) went on for some time and the first response by Pepto was to a few individuals:
@snackmantis @TheCBurns Sometimes commas just find their own way in when you go down the rabbit hole of awkward diarrhea.
— Pepto-Bismol (@Pepto) October 28, 2013
Remember, when you reply to a tweet, the only people who can see that tweet are the person you’re sending it to and those Twitter users who follow you both. The world at large won’t see tweets directed at individuals.
It wasn’t until a full 24 hours had passed that an open response came from Pepto.
Speaking of awkward…punctuation misplacement can be so awkward. But still, not as awkward as diarrhea. Right?
— Pepto-Bismol (@Pepto) October 28, 2013
The moral of the story boys and girls is mistakes happen. For the most part, people are forgiving. Pepto-Bismol hit their target audience. They showed great engagement techniques. They showed that they were human, but they blew it on the response.
I loved the fearless nature of posting such a tweet. I applaud the engagement thereafter and the willingness to acknowledge a mistake. But by not responding publicly for 24 hours….it makes me pose my original question.
What was the Pepto-Bismol social media team thinking?
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