In last week’s column, we took a look at how Crock-Pot dealt with the untimely death of a beloved TV character due to a faulty Crock-Pot cord and the social media backlash that erupted from that pretend-but-apparently-emotional death on “This Is Us.”

Crock-Pot got it right. They didn’t get defensive or remind the people leading the outcry that Jack didn’t really die. In fact, they sympathized with the grieving audience and then used the incident to talk about their actual safety features.

Now the actor who plays Jack, Milo Ventimiglia, is on tour telling the world that he loves his Crock-Pot and wants to encourage other people to get one, too. Can you imagine what it would have cost Crock-Pot to hire the star of the season’s biggest hit to be their spokesperson?

On the flip side, Old Navy did not handle their social media storm nearly as well. As you probably heard because it was all over Iowa-based media, the Old Navy near Jordan Creek mall created a national incident when an employee racially profiled a customer and accused him of stealing a jacket that he actually got for Christmas and entered the store wearing.

After the incident, the man posted pictures and videos of the incident on his personal Facebook page, and it went viral. The post has more than 150,000 shares and thousands of interactions.  Old Navy’s reaction is a textbook example of how not to manage a social media crisis.

The post went live on Tuesday, Jan. 30, and Old Navy’s solution was to close the store the following day. The store and Old Navy corporate didn’t announce or explain the closure, which set the story on fire. The store reopened two days after the post went live, also without any explanation. A spokeswoman for Old Navy emailed an official statement that said Gap and all of its brands maintain a “zero means zero” policy and that an investigation of the incident was underway.

The email went on to say “we are a company made up of diverse people — from all backgrounds and cultures. We encourage diversity in thought, celebrate diversity in each other and demand tolerance and inclusion, always.”

On the same day, Old Navy’s Twitter and Facebook feeds had a statement that explained what happened and that the incident was under review. Two days later, on both social networks, the company announced that the customer was treated in a way that violated their policies and values. They also announced the firing of the three employees involved in the incident.

Underneath those official announcements was a huge outcry on Twitter and the Old Navy Facebook page. Angry consumers took it upon themselves to tell similar stories, complain about product, and, in general, kick Old Navy while they were down.

The next stumble on Old Navy’s part was that they went a little overboard in trying to prove that they weren’t racially insensitive. Suddenly, all of the models on their social media feed promotions and ads were African-American. You can imagine the public’s reaction to that shift.

The good news for Old Navy is that as quickly as the firestorm started, it seems to be dying down. But they could have turned the situation into a win rather than, at best, a draw. They missed some key best practices that could have saved the day.

In next week’s column, we’ll explore how brands should respond to going viral when they don’t want to be in the spotlight.