While the mobile industry is being owned by Apple’s iPhone Event, one of the primary distributors of Apple’s flagship device is making news as well. The problem is, it’s not the for the same reasons as the upcoming iPhone 5S/C. Instead, AT&T tried to leverage the significance behind the day’s date (9/11) for commercial reasons, and issued a truly misguided tweet that has since been deleted. That, however, didn’t stopped some publications from screen capturing AT&T’s not-at-all thought out social media marketing attempt.

Thanks to Ars Technica’s timely editors, the tweet in question–as well as some of the reaction–has been captured for all to see:

Click for full size
After seeing something like that, one wonders if these corporate social media managers have to answer to anyone before such things are posted. Surely, someone on AT&T’s web content staff had to see the 9/11 ad tweet and say, “Hey guys, is this really the best idea?” Of course, that person may have been treated in the following manner:

After the derision set in, AT&T removed the offending tweet and posted an apology, which didn’t really achieve the intended goal, at least from the perspective of the outspoken:

We apologize to anyone who felt our post was in poor taste. The image was solely meant to pay respect to those affected by the 9/11 tragedy.

— AT&T (@ATT) September 11, 2013

It should be noted that before it was deleted, the original tweet had a decent amount of retweets and favorites, as does the apology. While some are probably saving these posts for later use, it also indicates not everyone was offended by AT&T’s social media advertisement, disguised as a memorial post. The discussion over at Facebook indicates as much.

Oh yeah. AT&T posted the same thing over at their Facebook page. Naturally, that has also been deleted, replaced by pretty much the same apology. That’s some social media winning at it’s finest, folks.

[Lead image courtesy]