Scheduled tweets are tricky. No, not the scheduling part (that’s easy), but the part where brands (and sometimes people) tweet at hours when they’re clearly not online.

I understand why companies do it–especially when the goal is to pass along deals and information to customers and prospects. It makes sense. Tweets are hit or miss at best anyway, so it’s smart to spread your message out across the day (and/or night). What you shouldn’t do, however, is assume the status quo.

You can’t schedule it and forget it.

In the wake of Friday’s horrific school shooting, Stacey Acevero tweeted out:

“Probably a good idea for brands to show some sensitivity this afternoon.”

Which led me to her post about Smirnoff, and a completely unintentionally ill-timed tweet.

Read it, it’s worth it. Then ponder this: Smirnoff has since deleted the tweet but does not appear to have acknowledged what happened. Does that make a difference?

Photo by Roshan Nikam (Flickr).