Ryanair's CEO dresses as a leprachaun before flirting with customers during live Q&A

If there was a rule book on how best to handle live Q&A sessions on Twitter, Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary, aka the self-proclaimed ‘genius, Jesus, Superman, or odious little s***’, definitely misplaced his copy.

Just four days after the head of customer services at British Gas volunteered to be on the receiving end of a torrent of abuse during a similar flirt with social media, so too O’Leary braved the storm that is the online British public.

Kicking off events by donning a Leprechaun outfit, O’Leary soon began his ‘#GrillMOL’ tweeting session in earnest, treating his customers with respect and subtle charm. Erhem. “Nice pic. Phwoaaarr! MOL,” he tweeted to @aakritik and @Claire_Phipps, before Twitter users swiftly retweeted it, meeting the flirty comment with replies such as “@Ryanair how is it appropriate for an airline CEO to be a sexist pig?”, and: “People who fly Ryanair: do you also think this is an acceptable thing to tweet at a woman?” O’Leary eventually replied, standing by his initial charm offensive: “Just found out what hashtags are. Learning on da job! Always compliment ladies pics”. What a gent.

The most popular tweets of the #GrillMOL events included: “@digital_times Don’t you just hate moaners and proles? #GrillMOL What plans have you to make  @Ryanair even more uncomfortable for people?” and “@Ben_Yates I’ve sent one #GrillMOL tweet to @Ryanair and already an invoice for £18.50. Or £18.25 if I take their credit card.”

Despite good initial intentions, it seems Ryanair did little to better their online reputation with the social media experiment; The Independent described O’Leary’s as ‘crash-land[ing] spectacularly’ during the 1 hour and 18 minutes the Twitter world was blessed with his company, with the Metro commenting that O’Leary did little to shatter his stereotype as an ‘arrogant elitist’.

Companies looking to enhance their reputation online via stunts such as live Q&A’s may need to begin thinking before they unleash their bosses on Twitter, offering them guidance on how best to approach the public and having ‘well rehearsed crisis plans in place’ as suggested by MD of We Are Social, Robin Grant, last week in response to British Gas’ online crisis. If not, brands may just end up making bigger fools of themselves than before they began…