Recently US Airlines were left embarrassed when an employee responded to a customer with a cryptic tweet – an image of a woman and a very strategically placed toy airplane.  Understandably, this social media marketing error horrified the world and the image went viral.  In addition, the airline’s bizarre apology was retweeted over 12,000 times.

The PR failure from this ill-advised US Airlines post served as a reminder of the power of social media and how it can cause irreparable damage to a company’s brand.

Here are the six lessons to learn from this PR plane crash, as well as other social media disasters: