Social media is a great way to build your brand and increase your company’s visibility. Many companies such as Taco Bell, Old Spice and DiGiorno like to have fun with social media and interact with their customers and followers via Twitter. Brands tend to comment on trending topics and use popular hashtags, but it is important the companies and their social media experts understand and pay attention to what the hashtags really mean in order to avoid a PR disaster.

DiGiornio Pizza recently piggybacked on the trending topic of Ray Rice’s domestic abuse scandal using Twitter – and did so in order to promote its pizza.

What DiGiornio did wrong was big – the tweet completely missed the point of the hashtag. Rule number one – know what you are responding to.

What DiGiorno did right was everything else –following up carefully, personally, apologetically and honestly. Mistakes happen – correcting them is excellent crisis management.

Local companies as well as national ones can learn from DiGiorno’s error – don’t make the same mistake. More importantly, everyone can learn from the company’s response –by owning up to its error, and taking the high road, it will be back to fun, interesting tweets soon.

Click here to see how DiGiorno’s tweet caused an image problem and how they appropriately responded to the issue.