Great Social Media Idea: Lemons, Lemonade, etc.

A good portion of my job (What, you think I do social media work full time? Ha!) revolves around traditional old PR. Press releases, pitching stories, working with the media... all that good stuff. And believe me when I tell you that nothing is more frustrating than when something that could be a really good news hit for you includes a one crucial mistake that turns it moot. For colleges, it usually revolves around the name. Why so many reporters don't quite grasp the difference between, say, University of Portland and Portland State University (My own personal cross to bear!), I'll never understand.

All of this said, I really enjoyed how Alma College dealt with one of these eminently frustrating naming errors earlier this week. When USA Today named Alma one of the top ten colleges in Michigan but mistakenly used a photo from the Alma College in Canada (which, with a wonderful twist of irony, burnt down several years ago), the crack social media team at Alma College didn't just take it on the chin and send a stern email to the reporter.

Oh no. They tapped into that wonderful reservoir of righteous alumni outrage and charged USA Today to get it together. Queue an avalanche of likes, comments, and shares... probably even more than they would have received had USA Today run the correct picture in the first place and the link been shared as usual.

USA TODAY College names Alma College the #10 best college in Michigan!...BUT they used a photo of the "other" Alma...

Posted by Alma College on Friday, July 24, 2015

Of course in a situation like this you do want the media outlet to fix the mistake, but this is a good reminder that - in certain instances - it's OK... and sometimes even to your advantage... to have a good sense of humor in situations like this and to allow your community to share in the "outrage." 

Way to make lemonade out of this one, Alma!