Social media is now a crucial part of any business’ marketing process and interacting with your customers and fans can be a great branding and marketing tool. However, since social media is incredibly fast and responsive, it can very quickly spiral out of control if handled incorrectly.
Many social media campaigns have been executed with anticipated success; however they have quickly taken a turn for the worse and turned into a disaster.
Read on for some examples of how social media can quickly spiral out of control with our 4 major social media catastrophes…
JPMorgan Chase
In November 2013, JPMorgan Chase’s Investment and Services section launched a Q&A session on Twitter, asking users to send questions to Vice Chairman and investment banker, Jimmy Lee. The Q&A was quickly cancelled after countless people posted negative questions and insults (such as ‘can I have my house back?’). The campaign clearly demonstrates how easily companies take risks when they experiment with social media marketing.
McDonald’s
In 2012, McDonald’s launched a Twitter campaign titled ‘#McDStories’, where it encouraged customers to tell positive stories about their experiences when eating in a McDonald’s establishment. What prevailed was a string of dining horror stories, where within just two hours consumers gave very negative examples when it came to dining in McDonalds. As a result, the company quickly terminated the campaign, teaching us that it is vital to tread carefully when it comes to coming up with a campaign and corresponding hashtag.
GAP/American Apparel
In October 2012, category 3 hurricane, Hurricane Sandy, hit Eastern USA and surrounding areas. The hurricane was one of the deadliest and worst of its kind and during this time, clothing brand GAP tweeted: ‘All impacted by #Sandy stay safe! We’ll be doing lots of Gap.com shopping today. How about you?’ causing major outrage at the tactlessness and insensitivity of the brand.
Meanwhile, American Apparel sent out an email blast to its followers stating: ‘In case you’re bored during the storm, 20% off everything for the next 36 hours’, again leading to major anger and backlash. What’s the lesson learned? During any crisis or tragedy, avoid trying to use social media to your favour…
American Airlines
Responsive social media marketing is essential to the heart of a successful campaign. American Airlines learnt the hard way by having an automated response to every Tweet sent on its feed. In 2013, a customer sent an angry tweet about how, in his opinion, the airline was of a very poor quality. After receiving his automated response thanking him for ‘his support’, the tweet quickly went viral, forcing the company to take it down and respond personally to the angry traveller.
Social media has significantly changed the way that we interact with one another, however, it’s essential to always tread carefully and treat your followers with care and respect. Otherwise, you run the risk of being perceived as a negative brand which could detrimentally impact on your leads and sales.
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