Unlucky 7 - Bad Social Media Marketing

L'Oreal faked it

L’Oreal’s social media presence took a huge hit when it was revealed that they created a fake blog. Push marketing in the social media space is always a bad idea, especially when it’s this blatant. Don't create fake testimonials or blogs. Ever.

Dell Hell

Dell's reputation went up in smoke after tech blog Gizmodo published this photo of an exploding Dell laptop. This single image spread like wildfire across the blogosphere, causing Dell to eventually recall over four million laptop batteries. 

Dell eventually responded to the blogs, but it was the delayed response that put a cap on the period known as "Dell Hell." They should have responded sooner. A single image can be powerful. Use social media to stomp out fires before they turn into wildfires.

Dominos Pizza "extra toppings"

                                          

Two employees post a video on YouTube that grosses out an entire nation of pizza goers. What saved this from being anything more than a goof, however, was the reaction of then USA Domino's president, Patrik Doyle. 

He gave a well-worded apology and took full responsibility. Others should have been paying attention to this.Organisations should create social media guidelines for the entire company

Red Cross gets slizzerd

It was an innocent mistake. The Red Cross's social media specialist (who was an intern) meant to send this tweet from his personal Twitter profile - not from the @Red Cross account. 

Like Dominos, however, the Red Cross did a great job of owning up to the mistake, and even poked fun out of themselves in a later tweet. It was a big goof, but not a total fail. Organisations should have a system of checks and balances in place for your social media efforts.  Don't expect interns to handle the full load by themselves.

Chrysler hates Detroit drivers

It'd be different if this tweet came from Honda or even BMW: not a great idea, but it would be different. But this message came from Chrysler, the same company spending millions on the "Imported from Detroit" campaign. 

Making this situation even worse was Chrysler's excuse that the account was "hacked." Even though this could be true, Chrysler should have taken a page from Red Cross and Dominos.In social media always apologize: even when it's not entirely your fault.

You don’t own your hashtag.

McDonald’s found out the hard way that you can’t verbify everything. They initially tried to use the hashtag #McDStories on Twitter to showcase positive stories around McDonald’s. But instead, they a backlash of negative press ensued. They should have learned their lesson from Wendy’s #HeresTheBeef campaign four months prior.

QR Codes on Billboards = What were they thinking?

I don’t care how compelling you or your product is, no one is going to scan a QR code (not even the passenger) when driving down the freeway.

What marketers should learn from this

Push marketing rarely works as a social media strategy. Instead of releasing a standard press release, use a multitude of social media channels to interact with your audience.  Doing so makes your message much more likely to be spread.    

And if you're using social media, make sure you take it on seriously. Create the proper support channels and oversight so that mistakes don't happen, because once your message is out there in the universe, it can't be taken down easily. 

But if mistakes are made, be prepared to go through the appropriate social media channels to push an apology message out there. And make sure that while pushing your apology message out there that you're interacting with disgruntled customers. 

Not only will this demonstrate to the world that you are listening, but also that you are truly empathetic.