In celebration of Kelley’s new book, You’ve Got This: A Pep Talk for Church Communicators, we’re talking about mistakes. Check out our ‘We All Make Mistakes’ Contest to share your story and enter to win a free copy.
The other day, I witnessed a debate on Facebook about whether or not beans belong in chili. Immediately, I thought, “Hey, this would be a great poll to do on my church page since I haven’t done one of those yet!” So I set it up.
Copy was simple: “Cold weather begs the important question: beans or no beans in your chili?”
Then I chose a GIF for the “Yes beans” of a man I didn’t know looking up suddenly smiling and nodding. I chose the GIF for “no beans” to be Kevin, from The Office, dropping chili all over the floor.
After about 10 minutes of the post being live, our front desk receptionist shows up at my door explaining that we just received a phone call about the poll, urging us to take it down.
The man in the first GIF was apparently a porn star.
Fixing the Flub
I had no idea, so I quickly deleted the post and remade it to be two GIFs of Mr. Bean, one nodding in approval and the other shaking his head in disapproval. This was probably a better poll anyway.
The woman (yep, wasn’t a dude) who called us had also tried to contact us on Facebook, so I responded to her after changing it to thank her for watching our back and calling us.
She could have easily written a comment on the poll and really blown it up, but she wanted to protect our church so she called and messaged us privately.
The moral of the story is to always research a GIF before you post it and if you don’t know who it is or what they represent, find a different GIF!
Also, how did she know the guy was a porn star? Hmmm…
More:
- Have you ever made a mistake? Sure you have. Well, you’re in luck. You can enter our ‘We All Make Mistakes’ Contest and enter to win a free copy of You’ve Got This: A Pep Talk for Church Communicators by Kelley Hartnett.
- More mistakes? Read about Kelley Hartnett’s mailer mishap.
- Read the book: You can also just go buy a copy of You’ve Got This, because it’s worth reading.
