Xenophon Strategies

Two and a Half Tips For Ashton Kutcher On Using Twitter

Katie Lane

Much like the actor he replaced on Two and Half Men, Ashton Kutcher has been facing a bit of a PR firestorm lately.  Just a few weeks ago, reports surfaced that he allegedly cheated on his wife of six years, Demi Moore with a younger woman. Their resulting “marital troubles” have been splashed across the tabloids ever since.

Now, Ashton has gone and done it again with a Twitter post about former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno that has raised some red flags with his eight million followers:

Ashton claims that he posted the tweet after glancing at his television and reading the news that “JoePa” had been fired as Penn State’s football coach. Rather than doing his research before offering his opinion via his Twitter feed, Ashton posted the tweet thinking that Paterno had been let go “due to poor performance as an aging coach."

Adding insult to injury, Kutcher is an ambassador for ending human trafficking and child sex slavery, making his tweet all the more damaging to his reputation and credibility. Mr. Kutcher has since apologized for the misunderstanding and has subsequently “quit Twitter.”

If Ashton had only followed two and a half rules prior to posting his controversial tweet, than perhaps he would not have found himself in this predicament:

1. Posting to Twitter, or any other social network for that matter, is much like sitting down for an interview with a reporter. You will be held accountable for everything you say. Therefore, you must do your research before the interview, or in this case, posting to social media. Like any live interview, you can’t go back and “fix it,” so it’s imperative to get it right the first time.
2. You will inevitably make a mistake, everyone does. Own up to it, address the mistake and move forward (which Kutcher tried to do after receiving backlash from his initial tweet). Quitting is never a solution.
3. On the Internet, there is no delete button. While you can take down a tweet after posting, enough people can see it, screen grab it and archive it for it to become a topic of conversation.

Overall, think before you tweet.

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