The Rise PR Blog

Tweet in haste, repent in leisure

31 August 2010

Twitter isn’t new and the impact of a mis-judged, foul-mouthed or ill-timed tweet has been demonstrated time and time and time again.

But yesterday England cricketer Kevin Pietersen added his name to the long list of tweeters that have come unstuck, writing after his omisison from the England oneday squad that it was a ‘f*** up’. Will people ever learn!? Aside from swearing about a decision his bosses made, the main beef with KP’s tweet was that the squad hadn’t officially been announced at that stage, so the offending tweet was hastily removed.

I do feel sorry for KP though. Surely anyone would be annoyed at getting dropped and are we really so sensitive to the odd four letter word in this day and age? But a sportsperson is just like a brand when it comes to Twitter, you are ‘always on’ and everything is public.

Opinion is to be encouraged, with much of Twitter pretty anodyne for much of the time, but if you are in the public eye then counting to ten before hitting send is probably to be advised.