Being a social media manager for a big, public account is a difficult task. One small mistake on a tweet can be immediately amplified and scrutinized, as the official NHL account found out this morning.
The NHL sent out a congratulatory tweet on Monday to San Jose Sharks forward Patrick Marleau for his 500th career goal. There was an issue with the post, however, as instead of using video of Marleau’s goal, they used video of a Patrick Kane goal.
The tweet was deleted by the time this post was written, but I managed to catch a screengrab of the snafu.
It’s a safe bet whoever runs the Twitter account searched “Patrick” and “goal” and simply misclicked when selecting Kane over Marleau. Sure, the mistake could have been avoided by simply watching the video. But, mistakes happen. Some on huge platforms with 5.37 million followers like the NHL’s.
For those clamoring to see Marleau score his 500th goal, here you go.
Working in social media and having made typos or mistakes before, I understand how badly the person who wrote the tweet likely feels. All you can do is have a short-term memory about the situation and move on. Otherwise, the mistake will dwell on you. The tweet should have been vetted, but, human error, even for the league’s pro-social media person, happens.
