What a wonderful tool social media can be for a company,
when done right. When done wrong, it can leave a lot of heads shaking in
disbelief. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have grown in popularity with
companies of all sizes. It is now common to see social media managers who
control the operations of these accounts. When a social media post takes a turn
for the worst, we can’t help but wonder what was going on in the minds of these
social media savvy pros. These top social media fails will make you scream,
“Come on, what were you thinking!?”
US Airways Twitter
Fail
US Airways took a different approach to, “the customer is
always right” when they replied back to a customer’s complaint with a not-so-kid
friendly picture. It's so bad, we don't even feel comfortable describing it, but if you really want to find it, a simple Google search will bring it up.
Many people have had a slip of their finger and accidently
posted something that wasn’t meant for their followers. That is exactly what
happened to the US Airways twitter, but instead of instantly removing the
inappropriate graphic, the post stayed up for an hour before removal. An
apology followed the removal, but that didn’t stop the tweet from going viral,
making it very hard for the person behind the account to forget and move on
from their mistake.
Now US Airways has merged with American Airlines and it is
safe to say that their social media accounts are now in different hands. You
are safe to follow them again!
IHOP’s social media
strategy isn’t one to follow
This social media fail is a little different, because IHOP
was well aware what was happening on their social media accounts. They clearly
didn’t think about the reactions that could possibly come from mixing their
social media strategy with 6th grade humor. You all remember jokes
like, “butter face” or simply insulting a women’s figure. That is what IHOP
did, but instead of talking about an actual woman, they included a picture of
pancakes. Many people still didn’t find that very funny.
These tweets stayed up for about an hour until a lot of
criticism came tweeting IHOP’s way. These finally made the business think,
“Hmm, maybe this wasn’t a very funny joke”.
You now have seen how social media can do some harm to a
company when not done right. With social media having such a large presence in
a brands identity, it is very important to double-check what it is about to be
posted or in these cases, give it a triple-check.
Written by Mimi Rosenberg of Rebecca Adele PR & Events
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