This week has been a lesson in leading a professional Twitter account. We’ve chronicled what happened when Chad Shanks, the former Houston Rockets social media manager tweeted out the following thought:
As you’re probably aware by now, the Rockets took swift action and fired Shanks. Now Shanks is speaking out. In an interview with KPRC-TV, Shanks said he was proud of every tweet he had sent except for the one that cost him his job.
Shanks also spoke with the Sporting News and went further in-depth on his firing. He explained how the now-infamous tweet got out:
I would have full control of our Twitter account on game nights. An employee who works in my former department would help out and my immediate supervisor also gave support when needed, but for the most part for the last four seasons, it’s been me. I tried to cultivate a voice for our account that was somewhat snarky and playful because those posts got more fan interaction than a simple score update. So leading up to our series with Dallas, there were some harsh quotes about our team from Mark Cuban and former Rocket Chandler Parsons was returning after saying some negative things about the city, so the rivalry between the two organizations was at an all-time high.
Once we had the game (and the series) locked up with a minute or so left, I wanted to take a jab at the Mavs (something I’ve done every so often with other teams), and that idea popped into my head. I meant it to just be a play on taking an old horse out to pasture that would get our fans even more pumped up and agitate Mavs fans. Obviously, things didn’t turn out that way. I didn’t think people would equate pretend violence on an emoji horse with actual violence on a real horse. That’s not what I intended, but my job was to anticipate how these things would go over, and I failed.
Chad said almost immediately he knew he was in trouble:
My supervisor texted me pretty quickly. He’s normally very supportive of me taking the account to subversive places and doing everything I could to give the fans engaging content, but he wasn’t so supportive on this one, so I knew something was up.
Shanks said he was given a long leash by the Rockets, but let them down with his ill-advised tweet. In addition, Shanks said he underestimated the power and the reach of the team’s social media account. That is understandable. You work in an organization and sometimes it can feel the work atmosphere is a bubble and you feel insulated. However, the flip side is that unless the account is locked, tweets can and will go everywhere.
Shanks said originally the tweet was “an idea in my head that wasn’t offensive to me but was not perceived that way by a large number of people who in turn made their thoughts known and ultimately influenced me losing my job. If 100% of the audience saw the tweet the way I did, I’d be at my office in Toyota Center right now, but I made the mistake of only considering how I’d interpret a Tweet instead of the millions of diverse people who eventually saw it,” and it eventually cost him his job.
As he departs his position, Shanks did have one piece of advice who work in similar positions, those who are in charge of a professional business Twitter account, “Know your audience, then balance your personality, knowledge and experience with the expectations of the people who sign your check.”
Certainly some good words to live by and hopefully Shanks has learned his lesson and will be able to find another job down the road.
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