When I came across Maddie Erjavec’s blog post about the impact of social media on brand marketing, I was surprised that a majority of the reviews written about companies were positive. Voluntary response channels, like social media, can be volatile as most users that comment on their experience with a brand will be the most strongly opinionated, whether that attitude be positive or negative. Perhaps the most dangerous part of social media as a tool for brand awareness is how uncontrollable it is, and how quickly it can spin out of the PR manager’s control, like was the case for Applebee’s recent Facebook meltdown. Public relations is often loosely defined as “spinning the story” to create positive publicity out of an unfavourable event, which Applebee’s attempted to do in the wake of firing a waitress after she posted a picture of a receipt that a customer had left a snarky remark on, claiming that the waitress had violated the customer’s privacy.  In a world where so much of our lives have become public property with the advances in technology and communication, Facebook users were outraged that the waitress was fired and began creating anti-Applebee’s boycotts and spamming the company’s Facebook page. In an attempt to appease the angry customers, whose comments were potentially causing them to lose a loyal consumer base, Applebee’s posted a status stating “We wish this situation didn’t happen…Our franchisee has apologized to the Guest and has taken disciplinary action with the Team Member for violating their Guest’s right to privacy.” This statement had exactly the opposite effect that Applebee’s PR team meant it to have, generating some 17,000 comments in less than 12 hours, at which point Applebee’s escalated the situation even further to began engaging with angry comments by tagging users and directly responding to their qualms. Although for getting brand recognition social media is effective, when opinions are uncensored and delivered in mass, companies like Applebee’s need to reshape their PR strategies to handle situations that can quickly spin out of control.