Nissan Takes Down Awesome Tweet

Dear Nissan: when something is this awesome, let it ride.

The agency that operates Nissan’s Twitter account put out an amazing Tweet shortly after it was announced that Tesla would not be able to directly sell their cars in New Jersey. Unfortunately, the suits at Nissan didn’t care for it and had the Tweet taken down. This is a big mistake.

Social media is a venue where wins are less likely than losses. Companies that try to be clever are often hit with challenges that they didn’t anticipate. This particular Tweet might have offended some people, particularly those who are supporting Tesla or pushing against the franchise model in general in the automotive industry, but that’s not enough of a reason to pull the Tweet. The positives could have greatly outweighed the negatives.

If you’re going to play on social media, you have to do so aggressively. That means taking chances. For Nissan to go vanilla on this play is silly.

According to Autoblog:

Rob Robinson, senior specialist of social communications for Nissan, told AutoblogGreen that the Leaf Twitter account is run by an agency, and that the tweet in question, “Was not a tweet that was reviewed or approved by Nissan. We saw it and asked them to take it down.” As for the reasoning, Robinson said that, “We thought it was a discussion we didn’t need to be weighing in on.”