After initially denying paying mommybloggers to post positive comments about the company's exoneration of electronic failure in the unintended acceleration fiasco, Toyota tweeted a link to a blog summarizing the situation using the #Toyotafail hashtag. They thus owned up to offering $10 in a pay for post scheme, and gained a little cred by using the self-effacing hashtag.

We've added this as a new best practice in our Enterprise Social Media Framework: If you're caught on social media manipulation, fess up.

And even better: Don't deny in the first place. More and more companies are starting to realize it's hard to hide from the glare of millions of social network users. Apple found it out when a prototype of their iPhone 4 found its way into the hands of tech gadget site Gizmodo.They turned what could have been positive buzz into a huge #fail by going all medieval on the tech blog.

Gizmodo has been pointedly not invited to Apple events ever since.

Deny, threaten, crackdown - these are the typical tools of traditional organizations to suppress speech they don't like (see Oprah's adventure with the Texas Cattlemen's Association - don't diss a hamburger in Texas).

These tools are going to become less and less effective and conversely give companies more and more bad press and ill will among the public.

P.S. Thanks to @Crissy for retweeting Toyota's response: "The confusion behind mommynetworks.org explained by @jalopnik http://bit.ly/gI2OZH #Toyotafail"