This week, Arizona business owners Samy and Amy Bouzaglo “lose their cool” on Facebook (to put it mildly), in response to being rejected by Gordon Ramsay‘s show, Kitchen Nightmares. A massive flame war ensues. It’s Anthony Bourdain meets Martha Stewart meets Westboro Baptist Church. You want to look away, but you just can’t.
It begins with:
It escalates:
And it doesn’t stop there:
At this point, it makes one wonder. Is this for real? Is this a brilliant publicity stunt or are they genuinely this nasty? The saga continues:
And finally:
As it turns out, their Facebook page was supposedly hacked and the posts appear to have been fictitious. Still, this fiasco brings up some important lessons for those who manage an online presence. Whether your atittude towards social media is good, bad, or indifferent, it’s good to practice basic rules of online etiquette.
Here are just a few tips that might have served the situation well:
- This is the internet. You can never erase your tracks. Let that guide how you want your audience and customers to perceive you before you hit “Post” or “Send”.
- DO NOT TYPE IN ALL CAPS OR USE MULTIPLE PUNCTUATION MARKS!! WHY??? BECAUSE YOU WILL LOOK LIKE A 3RD GRADER TALKING ABOUT LAST NIGHTS JUSTIN BEIBER CONCERT!! ALSO U SHUD SPELLCHECK SO U DONT LUK LIKE AN MOREON?? LOLOLOLOLOL
- Do not respond to trolls and spam posts. It’s a waste of time and reduces communications to figurative poop-throwing. Appoint someone to moderate your comment threads and reply to messages in a professional and timely manner.
- Just like they say about dinner parties, avoid topics like sex, politics and religion. Just… keep it to yourself. Be personable, but professional. Also, cursing. Best used like salt and pepper. When used sparingly, it can enhance flavor, but too much makes you sound like an idiot.
- Finally, this is not exclusively an internet etiquette rule but it’s a good one, nonetheless. This one comes from Thumper’s mom. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. It’s no secret that people generally respond better to positive reinforcement than to negative reinforcement.
It’s fair to point out that the internet community was no role model here. Whether or not this these posts were really published by Samy and Amy, people threatened and pushed into a corner are bound to lash out. People went out of their way to encourage the hysteria when they could have ignored it. The internet is not always a nice place.
So business owners (and anyone else online, really), the next time you encounter aggressive or contrary dialogue on your social media page, remember Samy and Amy Bouzaglo. Stay cool and post wisely!
