#EpicFail: @FourSeasons Social Media Manager Fails To Tweet Apology To NBA Star @Baron_Davis For Racial Profiling

I normally don't go looking for controversy on Twitter and suggest people get #fired, however I follow @Baron_Davis on Twitter as I'm a huge fan of his new show #HowIRockIt on @ESQTV! I also consider myself an up & coming fashion stud and follow @Esquiremag. And I sincerely believe that what happened to him yesterday was wrong and if @RealDonaldTrump were the CEO of @FourSeasons he'd tweet this pic below directly to the Social Media Manager...

Why you ask?

Yesterday, #MLKday2014, was supposed to be just a relaxing day. I was simply minding my own business preparing for all my regularly scheduled Twitter chats about social media marketing, when Baron's Tweets come into my feed! 

It was if a bomb dropped! He was so mad he used the wrong handle, which should have been @Fourseasons or @FSVancouver. No matter. The only tweet he recieved was this:

Every major lessons I and all the Pros I know have spent all year chatting freely about via #MMchat, #SocialChat, #AtomicChat, #KloutChat, #CMMinds, #RonR, etc. were shattered yesterday afternoon! This is seriously a tweet by tweet, real life #StreetMBA lesson for social media community managers:

What do you do?

My first thought was hopefully the Social Media manager tweets him an apology within the next few minutes. He's clearly upset and the man has 874K plus Twitter followers and this could get ugly! 

Well, guess what happened? The social media manager sent nothing. No apology = #Fired! Seriously, if it were Jordan or Tiger, would you apologize then?

Fact: @Fourseasons only has 99k followers. He has more influence than you on Twitter!

As an accomplished Creative Director, I would be furious if @Fourseasons were my advertising client because I would be scraping to earn not just his business but his influence to make my campaign successful! The best mobile, native advertising campaigns in 2014 are heavily interconnected with influencers and earned media and the results to drive sales are in my scope, not this Social Media Manager! The lesson to avoid here: @Baron_Davis could easily go on to @CNN and crush my campaign (if I were the agency of record)! 

In fact, I would have scheduled a meeting with the CMO and the PR staff to offer the man a deal:

- Offer a written (and tweet) apology

- Insist an investigation and policy review

- Donate $10,000 donation to his favorite charity 

In exchange, I would request @Baron_Davis tweet the following:

Thank you @Fourseasons for doing the right thing! I accept your apology and generous donation to my favorite charity! #imhappynow

Goal: Make his #MLKday!!!

Superior social media engagement should be the aim of every luxury brand around the world and this blunder servers  for the rest of us as an opportunity to watch in horror and decide:

Apologize or Not.

It's your move @Fourseasons.

#FreshPrinceofCleantech