Laura Rosenfeld, Tech Times

As news breaks about a tragic event or its anniversary rolls around, it's natural for people today to take to social media to voice their opinions, memories and condolences. This is the age we live in, where it's almost like if you don't comment on something, you're a terrible person. Social media has completely changed how we learn and handle tragedy.

Of course, this is the point of social media, to allow people from all over the world to connect and discuss whatever is on their minds in real time. With everyone talking about a certain topic and hashtags trending on Twitter, it's easy to feel the appeal, not to mention pressure, to send out a tweet really quickly so that you have a good chance of a lot of people seeing it. But if you don't take a good amount of time to think about how people will perceive your tweet, you could find yourself embroiled in a bit of a PR nightmare.

Brands are notorious for doing just that. If there's a major event grabbing headlines or a hashtag trending on Twitter, you can be sure that no matter how horrific it is, one or more brands will take this opportunity to promote themselves, because that's the point of brands being on Twitter. Most of us usually just think to ourselves that these promotional tweets are icky or inappropriate. But one man has taken it upon himself to document the way brands were handling the anniversary of September 11th. 

Mike Monteiro, the design director of the design studio Mule, responded to many of the brands tweeting to commemorate the 13th anniversary of the September 11 attacks yesterday. Many of the brands were promoting their own discounts for that day. Consequently, many of Monteiro's comments were predictably irreverent and sarcastic toward the brand, feigning an earnest appreciation of the brands' thoughts on the day.

Sometimes, Monteiro just retweeted messages from brands to let them speak for themselves.

Monteiro even inspired some people to send in ads they stumbled upon.

However, Monteiro's efforts even backfired on him a little with some Twitter users accusing him of using the campaign to, ironically, serve his own interests.


Sean Bonner, an entrepreneur and journalist, also retweeted brands' messages in a similar fashion to Monteiro yesterday and told AdWeek, "Brands are not people. Brands do not have emotions or memories or condolences or heartbreak. People have those things, and when a brand tries to jump into that conversation, it's marketing. And in a less emotionally charged environment it's just dumb."

And sometimes, tweeting out an apology can't make what you did go away.

Looks like emotional intelligence on social media is still on a learning curve. 

[H/T AdWeek]

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