Every social media manager’s worst nightmare is posting something on the wrong social channel.

With the click of a (wrong) button, a social media manager can unleash any number of posts, tweets, photos or videos to the wrong account for thousands to see. For an inexperienced manager, this is an easy mistake to make. For those of us more experienced, this is only a distant nightmare that we (touch wood) hope will never happen.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened to the social media manager in charge of Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil and Man City’s Ilkay Gundagon’s social media channels. A post that was clearly meant to be posted on Gundagon’s Twitter page was accidentally posted on rival team player Ozil’s page. The link between the two is that both players are German-Turks, which makes it even more likely that this mishap was the working of the same social media manager.

The interesting part of this story is the reaction from fans. Many were disappointed at the realisation that Ozil wasn’t personally tweeting himself. Fans felt betrayed and annoyed that the persona they’d come to know and love was actually a random person at the end of a computer. The upside to this is that the social media manager must have been doing a good job to make fans think it was the man himself.

So, what can we learn from this all-mightly slip up? Firstly, take social media with a pinch of salt. It’s highly likely that your favourite celebrity is paying for a professional to run their accounts for them. Secondly, remember that for many, social media is all business. Whilst the average Joe might use social media for its primary purpose – communication – celebrities, footballers, brands, bloggers, etc use social media for business purposes, and it can be very lucrative. Last but not least, if you do want someone to run your social media accounts, choose someone with experience and a good track record. I’m sure we know someone…