Social media marketing a one big game to master, both the gain and the loss are in your own hands. It can spank your brand reputation to the same extent you had strengthened it. Twitter is not only defined as microblogging site but also is popular due to success stories shared by people who have succeeded in their business online. Though many succeeded, it doesn’t mean your business too gets success. We get to see many blunders of Twitter marketing. Have a look at five worst corporate blunders in 2012.
McDonald’s: McDonald’s (@McDonald’s) created the #McDstories hashtag on Twitter to inspire customers to share their personal stories about their favorite moments at McDonald’s. McDonald’s gave complete freedom to the customers to share both good and bad moments they experienced — everything from finger-licking-good to getting stomach upset. But within 2 hrs they were flooded with many negative stories were shared and the company had tough time digesting these stories.
Moral: Its quite impossible to un-hijack your hashtag after it starts getting negative comments.
UrbanOutfitter (An American apparel): During the storm, Urban Outfitters (@UrbanOutfitters) tweeted an ad for “Hurricane Sandy Sale” which has sparked backlash from the Twitter-sphere. The clothing retailer sent out an email offering 20% off to its customers for the next 36 hours “in case you’re bored during the storm”. The brand had to face Angry reactions from its customers and many dropped their decision to visit the store again, despite of apologies.
Moral: Don’t take advantage over social issues, it just hurts personal feelings of your customers.
Toyota Camry: Major car manufacturer Toyota (@Toyota) didn’t create just one or two, but nine brand-new Twitter accounts to drag attention to their latest iteration of the Camry during Superbowl 2012. Anyone using a Superbowl-related hashtag was spammed with a message about a Camry giveaway. Social media users weren’t interested in unsolicited messages, so Toyota closed the accounts and issued an official apology.
Moral: No one likes Hashtag hog, rather its a better way of marketing to stick to personalized messages that engage customers.
Snickers: Marketers from Snickers’ U.K. branch (@SnickersUK) were too hungry for retweets and hired British model and reality TV start Katie Price to tweeted about snickers, the topic she would never choose to tweet in general. This stunt left many of Katie’s followers to think that her Twitter account had been hacked but in actual she was shilling for snickers.
Moral: clever pranks at customers can draw attention to your brand but never cross the limit.
KitchenAid: Badly, KitchenAid (@KitchenAidUSA) wasn’t talking about its famous kitchen appliances but about politics, which tossed their reputation in seconds. A KitchenAid’s social media employee smashed the entire brand as she accidentally forgot to sign out of her Twitter account before sharing her thoughts on a presidential debate. An apology was issued later but the loss did happen.
Moral: Any personal views on any debatable topic in your brand’s page can prove fatal for brand’s reputation.
SusanAlbumParty: In commemoration of the golden-voiced British singer’s (#Susanalbumparty) new album release, her social media team coined what may have been the year’s worst hashtag. Twitter users quickly figured out that without the use of CamelCase, in which the first letter of each word is capitalized, the tag could be red as something very obscene. Though, few of the social media experts speculate that it was actually a deliberate move by her PR team to get the tag trending.
Moral: If your hashtag can easily appear obscene, the dialogue isn’t going to be about your actual product.
Starbucks: A coffee giant who was playing hide and seek for a long time by avoiding tax and the this news hit the headlines in October 2012 and managed to fill some tax. This is not the end of the story, it had to bear all those taunts from Twitter users. The company when it released a hashtag (#spreadthecheer hashtag) from which people could appear on-screen with their festive tweets, customers opted to taunt the “companies tax avoidance” rather to participate. How could it just did forgot the bravos in Twitter?
Moral: Be ready face negative comments.
