Social Media For Brands: What Not To Do #1

Someone on twitter had recently asked me to blog my experiences as 'Dos and Don'ts for brands in the social media space'.

Well, here's a start:

Although this is something that applies to everyone on twitter, it holds greater significance for brands:

#1 Don't tweet without thinking it through: What you tweet can be damaging and irreversible. As a brand, you need to be doubly-sure of the message you're trying to convey. Especially considering the permanent nature of tweets. If you send out something without thinking about the meaning it can convey, and realize later, it would be too late to delete that tweet. For by then, it would have been read by your followers, replied to and even retweeted. 

Case in point: My own retweet of Vodafone's tweet when they responded to my complaint about network issues...

(Original tweet)

Have you had any similar experiences with brands on twitter?