Soccer Star Scores Reputation Own Goal

Did you know that when you tweet, people can generally read each of your 140 characters?

Not sure if the, now former, Leicester City player Michael Ball realized that or not, but his attack on homosexual British actor Antony Cotton just cost him a £6,000 fine, and apparently his job.

Ball messaged the Coronation Street actor Antony Cotton, who is openly gay and plays the factory worker Sean Tully in the long-running soap opera. Cotton was at the time appearing in I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! “That ******* queer,” Ball wrote. “Get back to your sewing machine in Corrie you moaning *******.” The message has since been deleted.

Being somewhat “high profile” Ball’s Twitter feed likely didn’t need much in the way of expert monitoring, but your business is likely not as lucky. Are you keeping an eye on your employee’s tweets? Of course, you don’t want to sit and watch every single tweet they vomit up each day, but you should be aware of any tweet that mentions your brand, right? You should know if they talk badly about your clients, their fellow employees, or your own products.

Trackur’s social media monitoring includes Twitter (and Facebook, and Google+) so you don’t have to stand over the shoulder of each and every employee. If they’re talking about your company–good or bad–you’ll know about it.

(hat tip Simon Heseltine)