Social media continues to teach its users that in this increasingly diverse, multicultural, multiethnic nation, people should deliberate long and hard -- and even get a second and third opinion -- before they say or post anything.

For corporations, the senseless use of social media in the rush to one-up competitors could result in the loss of customers and a lot of too-real dollars and cents.

Sprint Corp. CEO Marcelo Claure has made himself an object lesson for others after he posted a clip on Twitter of a white woman who looked at a black man in a video before describing Sprint‘s rival T-Mobile as “ghetto.” The Kansas City Star reported that the comment was taken in one of several “listening tour” sessions Claure has had with wireless consumers nationwide.

In the video clip, Claure is at a table with several consumers. The skating rink in Bryant Park in New York is visible behind them. Claure asks the woman what comes to mind, “When I say T-Mobile to you, just a couple of words.”

She responds: “Oh, my god. The first word that came to my head was ghetto. That sounds, like, terrible.”

The public reaction on Twitter was fast and rightfully condemning. Claure took down the clip with an apology. He acknowledged poor word choice by the woman.

But Sprint executives should have considered the blowback from the woman’s negative comments. This is where having a diverse workforce open to criticism really matters most.

The Kansas City-based Sprint is the nation‘s third wireless carrier ahead of rival T-Mobile. AT&T ranks second behind No. 1 Verizon.

But New York-based Verizon may be hurt in a strike of 40,000 union employees. They walked out Wednesday after months of negotiations failed to yield a contract agreement.

Verizon also has drawn political fire from Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in his campaign ahead of the Tuesday primary in New York. Sanders criticized Verizon over workers’ wages, company tax dodges, health care benefits and efforts to take some jobs overseas.

Verizon executives have fired back. But in the fickle, highly competitive wireless communications industry, customer loyalty to any company has the tensile strength and love of laundry lint.

Any little thing -- such as a racist Twitter post or a workers‘ strike especially when it’s picked up in a contentious presidential campaign -- will cause customers to switch carriers. Public relations damage control measures have been deployed, but they may not be enough to enable the offending corporations to maintain their market share.

But the good news is that something else is bound to come along, and the public‘s attention span, which also is fickle and erratic, will grab on to something else, enabling Sprint and Verizon to breathe a sigh of relief -- for now -- and go back to business as usual.

By Lewis W. Diuguid

Lewis W. Diuguid is a member of the Kansas City Star’s editorial board. Readers may write to him at Ldiuguid@kcstar.com. –Ed.

(Tribune Content Agency/The Kansas City Star)