What defines social media outrage and customer dissonance?

All practicing public relations professionals would by now be too familiar with the all too often tryst with soc-med disasters by players in the aviation business. You had the sad saga of American Airlines tweeting out lewd pictures in reply to a query by a flyer, who wanted to have some information.

There have been a handful of such incidents in the airline business, which is probably one of the more wide adapters of social media for better customer engagement and experience.

The latest social media outrage is over what General Mills company chose to do – the company shocked social-media users everywhere this week after an update to its legal policy was interpreted as preventing customers from suing the company if they Like any of its brands on Facebook.

Off-course, the food company later reversed the change to its legal policy in response to the controversy.

"Those terms -– and our intentions -– were widely misread, causing concern among consumers," Kirstie Foster, General Mills' director of external communications, wrote in a statement online. "So we’ve listened –- and we’re changing them back to what they were before."

Now to the question that brought forth this post – What action on social media can be construed as that can provoke outrage, and moreso, cause tangible customer dissonance to the brand?

The answer, a simple and interesting one emerged on twitter, in an interaction on the latest General Mills fiasco.

“As long as none of our rights are in jeopardy” (read customer or user rights) there is no cause for concern.”

What better way to sum up what will really impact your social brand – if your customer rights are in jeopardy, they will thrash you bad.

Makes eminent sense? Thank you Steven Caggiano.