Twitter can be incredibly powerful for driving qualified leads to your business. Done well, Twitter can help your business engage with thought leaders, customers and other important members of your community.
But Twitter marketing isn’t always done well.
Many things can go wrong when a business begins tweeting:
- The business can launch a plan that hasn’t been fully thought out
- The business could lie to the people it’s trying to reach
- The person responsible for tweeting could mix up their personal and business accounts
- And so much more
The most popular example of Twitter marketing gone wrong is McDonald’s hashtag campaign #McDstories. McDonald’s wanted customers on Twitter to share their personal stories of eating at McDonald’s. During the planning phase, no one foresaw what actually happened: While some customers took the idea and posted their positive stories about McDonald’s, others tweeted negative stories about the fast food chain.
Lesson learned: Always think of the worst possible reaction to your online campaign.
Back in 2011, The American Red Cross had a social media slip-up of their own: One of the users responsible for the Red Cross Twitter account had confused her personal account with the nonprofit’s account and tweeted “Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch beer…. when we drink we do it right #gettngslizzerd.” Not exactly professional.
Lesson learned: Check twice before publishing any tweet. Although this tweet was taken down pretty quickly, the Internet never forgets. We do have to commend the Red Cross for it’s response to the tweet, though: “We’ve deleted the rogue tweet, but rest assured the Red Cross is sober and we’ve confiscated the keys.” By acknowledging your mistake in a humble and funny way, it’s possible to come back from these kinds of mistakes.
At Fahrenheit Marketing, we follow best practices to ensure our clients get good results from social media. If you’d like to know more about how Fahrenheit Marketing can help you, contact us today.