Pro tip: my coffee shop posted a meme about our rival and it blew up in 2 hours
So I help run socials for a small coffee spot in Portland. Two Saturdays ago our owner thought it would be funny to post a meme poking fun at the big chain that opened across the street. Nothing mean, just a joke about their 12 dollar latte. Well, someone screenshotted it and tagged the chain, and within 2 hours we had like 400 comments, half of them from people who don't even live here. The chain's account replied with a super corporate 'we appreciate all coffee lovers' type thing, which honestly made it worse for them. Our owner panicked and wanted to delete it. I said leave it up but turn off comments. We gained about 600 followers but a bunch of local folks said we were being petty. Still not sure if we handled it right. Has anyone else had a small business joke backfire like this? What did you do?