Classic Social Media Fails
David Cameron
At the time when World affairs required immediate attention, Mr Cameron chose to prove to his Twitter followers that he’s working hard, and what better way than to take a picture of yourself talking on the phone, but looking really serious. So serious in fact, it probably took a snaps to get that right look.
The Prime Minister tried to show people the seriousness of the situation by telling people he was in contact with US President, Barack Obama. Sadly, people weren’t quite buying the staged shot and it lead to many imitating the image, one of the best coming from Patrick Stewart. At least people knew David Cameron was thinking about reassuring the public, just not doing it in the best way.
HMV
It’s important to have control over your social accounts when you’re at the top of a business, or to at least know how to handle them. When HMV went into administration, it lead to a number of redundancies within the company, probably best not to let this information slip beforehand.
The person in charge of the twitter handle decided to let the people know what was going on, even managing to get the hashtag: #hmvXFactorFiring trending so people could keep up to date. Live tweeting the whole ‘exodus’, one of the tweets saying: “There are over 60 of us being fired at once! Mass execution, of loyal employees who love the brand. #hmvXFactorFiring.”
Sky News
You should always have one eye on who’s looking after your company’s twitter account. At the same time, in a panic situation, the normal thing to write under pressure is “... was here!” When these two instances came together, a magical moment occurred. Sky News randomly tweeted “Colin was here” to its hundreds of thousands of followers.
Enter the world of Twitter users and the immediate responses that will ensue. It became a huge chance for other companies to jump in on the '#colin' hashtag and use it to their advantage. As well as all of this, Sky managed to salvage the situation and not look too bad from it - a win/win for everyone.
A company should have control over what they’re tweeting. But we’ve got to admit, that in those special moments where they don’t, everyone gets a good laugh out of them.
Dan Barr
I'm a Social Media Executive (Global Community Manager). Previous work includes writing for Social Media Frontiers and working for a major DIY retail company as part of their social media strategy team I have an MA in Sports Journalism and especially love the combination of social media and sport.
Contact us on Twitter, on Facebook, or leave your comments below. To find out about social media training or management why not take a look at our website for more info http://socialmediacambridge.co.uk/.
I'm a Social Media Executive (Global Community Manager). Previous work includes writing for Social Media Frontiers and working for a major DIY retail company as part of their social media strategy team I have an MA in Sports Journalism and especially love the combination of social media and sport.
Contact us on Twitter, on Facebook, or leave your comments below. To find out about social media training or management why not take a look at our website for more info http://socialmediacambridge.co.uk/.
Classic Social Media Fails
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Reviewed by Alex Carson
on
Friday, March 21, 2014
Rating:
Alex Carson
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