In recent months several brands have witnessed consumer backlash after their respective social media managers accidentally let a few rogue tweets fly after choosing the wrong Twitter account for a personal update. You may remember that the Red Cross was “gettin slizzered” and Chrysler thinking that no one can ironically “f*ing drive” in Detroit. Unfortunately, up until now it’s been easy to make this mistake and update a branded account instead of a personal account, which – if drastically offensive or poorly handled by PR – can negatively impact a brand’s reputation.

In light of these recent rogue tweets, Hootsuite has unveiled HootSuite Secure Profiles. According to HootSuite’s blog, the all new Secure Profiles feature is “a tool designed to prevent high-profile brands from accidentally posting personal updates from valuable corporate profiles. This new feature provides control for organizational teams so that:

• Account owners can designate chosen social profiles as “Secure”
• Team members are prompted to confirm or cancel messages before sending
• Secure Profiles are available on web (iPhone, Android and Blackberry available shortly)

The Secure Profiles feature is available exclusively as part of HootSuite’s Enterprise plan. It is designed for large organizations with multiple team members, and the Enterprise plan includes access to comprehensive tools to monitor, engage and measure your social media ROI by using Hootsuite’s Social Analytics – a comprehensive social media analytics tool. The option to designate a Secure Profile can be found within “Profile Settings”. Hootsuite users tweeting from a designated “Secure Profile” will be prompted to “slide to confirm” their tweets when tweeting from these accounts. This should hopefully reduce the number of “PR conundrums”, as Hootsuite calls them, as social media managers, whether drunk or just distracted, will no longer be able to post to that high-profile Twitter account accidentally.

For more information about using HootSuite Secure Profiles, visit hootsuite.com/enterprise.