Social media really offers potential for huge success. Tweeting and sending Facebook statuses to millions of people truly is a great way to garner attention. However, what happens when you end up simply making a huge mess of things with a comment, so out of tune with your followers they register nothing but disdain? Well, here are some of the biggest social media mishaps of all time.
Oreo
We’ll start on the lighter and most recent side of things. They say one shouldn’t talk about religion or politics over food, well what happens if you are food, well a food manufacturer anyway. Oreo made a stand for gay rights on Monday and in the process registered 143,000 likes and over 18,000 comments.
The biscuit company posted an update with a rainbow biscuit image with the caption ‘Proudly Support Love!!! June 25/Pride. However, though there were plenty of positive response, many registered discomfort and unhappiness in the comment box.
One woman’s response was ‘Now I hate Oreos’ and other wrote ‘This is absolutely disgusting. Your attempt to ‘normalize’ the behaviour of homosexuals has cost you a customer.” In fact, Oreo’s page became an area of heated debate with numerous civil rights and bible messages coming to the fore, as well as what some fans deemed to be ‘attacks of faith’. Of course, whether you see this as a social media fail is up to you, but ask yourself if it’s financially a good idea for a business to take a political stand?
KFC Thailand
One would presume that Colonel Sanders was the victim of few tidal waves in Kentucky. However, in Thailand, it’s a different story. Only a few months ago during a tsunami warning, KFC decided on posting, “Let’s hurry home and follow the earthquake news. And don’t forget to order your favourite KFC menu” on its Facebook.
In a country which lost 8,000 people to a Tsunami in 2004, it was unsurprisingly seen as distasteful. KFC apologised, but the damage was done.
Kryptonite Evolution Ball Point Pen
Once considered the toughest bike lock on earth, it turns out it could be picked with a Biro. After numerous blogs, videos and social media messages were sent showing how to do it and commenting negatively on the locks, and a feature in the New York Times – Kryptonite didn’t even respond. A huge failure and one that goes against one of the main pieces of advice for using social media – always deal with complaints.
Dell
When an image appears on one of the world’s largest tech websites showing one of your laptops exploding, then you know you’re in trouble. An image of an exploding Dell computer obviously spread across social media and print like a forest fire.
Even more fatally, Dell didn’t respond to the images, blogs and talk about the picture for days, allowing it to get completely out of control. They also had to recall over 4m laptops.
Red Cross
Always check and check again when sending work related Tweets. The American Red Cross didn’t and an intern who thought he was sending a message from his own account posted the following on the American Red Cross site – “Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch beer….when we drink we do it right #gettngslizzerd. Unlike the aforementioned fails, the American Red Cross recovered with some self-depreciating humour and an apology. Lesson learned!
Cormac Reynolds writes for OneClickPrint from London.
Quotes from Mashable and SocialMediaNews Alert.
