Two Important Lessons Learned From The 10 Biggest Social Media Blunders Of 2011

Two Important Lessons Learned From The 10 Biggest Social Media Blunders Of 2011:

This week AdAge released their list of the biggest social media blunders of 2011 and it was truly a banner year for the misguided. This year’s list includes a politician, an actor, a comedian and several major brands (see below).

1. Anthony Weiner (aka Weinergate) – New York politician Anthony Weiner knows firsthand that a social media misstep can be just as embarrassing as getting caught with your pants down (especially when you are tweeting photos of yourself with your pants down). This resulted in him resigning from the House of Representatives after 12 years in office.
2. Motor City #Fail – An employee at New Media Strategies mistakenly tweeted out “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to fucking drive” from @ChryslerAutos. This resulted in the employee being fired and Chrysler announcing that it would not renew the agency’s contract.
3. Kenneth Cole Creates Uproar – During the uproar in Cairo that was felt throughout social media, Kenneth Cole tried to capitalize on this phenomenon via this tweet: “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online.” This resulted in tons of negative press and the company quickly apologized and deleted the tweet.
4. Comedian Proves Not All Jokes Are Funny – After a devastating tsunami struck Japan, comedian Gilbert Gottfried tweeted out several insensitive “jokes” such as “Japan called me. They said, “Maybe those jokes are a hit in the U.S., but over here they’re all sinking.” This resulted in Aflac terminating their agreement with Gilbert Gottfried.
5. Twitter Contest “Grounded” – Australian airline Qantas launched a Twitter contest in November asking followers to share their dream luxury in-flight experience using #QantasLuxury. Unfortunately customers angry from the prior month’s grounded flights hijacked the contest’s hashtag by tweeting out thousands of angry responses.
6. GoDaddy Finds Itself Staring At The End Of A Barrel – After GoDaddy’s CEO Bob Parsons tweeted a video link of himself shooting an elephant in Zimbabwe, the company found itself in hot water. This resulted in the Ethical Treatment of Animals calling for a boycott and competitors offering discounted transfer rates.
7. Netflix Fails Faster Than You Can Stream A DVD – Everything that could go wrong, did for Netflix as it tried to spin-off its DVD rental service into a separate site called Qwikster. In addition to the poor communication to its customers, the company failed to obtain the Twitter handle @Qwikster which was owned by an incoherent male tweeter. Ultimately Netflix killed Qwikster and ended up with over 800,000 subscribers cancelling their memberships in the 3^rd quarter.
8. Ashton Kutcher “Punks” Himself – While news was circulating about sexual abuse charges at Penn State, Ashton Kutcher showed his support of Penn State Head Football Coach Joe Paterno by tweeting: “How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #no class as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste.” This resulted in Ashton Kutcher apologizing and announcing that his Twitter account would be managed by his management team.
9. Miami Heat Owner “Takes His Talents To Twitter” – During the NBA lockout NBA Commissioner David Stern made it clear that owners were not to publicly discuss the lockout with anyone. This however did not stop from Miami Heat owner Micky Arison from responding on Twitter to a user accusing the owners of greed. His response resulted in a $500,000 fine.
10. Ragu Stirs The Wrong Pot – In an effort to create a “viral” campaign for Ragu, Unilever created a video of moms complaining about the helplessness of their husbands in the kitchen and distribute it to high-profile dad bloggers on Twitter. Unfortunately the campaign did not include the right ingredients and failed to stir up the desired results as the dad bloggers denounced the company.

Examining these ten social media blunders, the first thing that sticks out is that all of them occurred on Twitter (I wonder if people learned from last year’s biggest mistake on Facebook at the hands of Nestle). Additionally seven of these mistakes could have been easily avoided if the user would have used discretion and the rest could have been prevented if the brand in question didn’t try to own earned media. This brings me to the two biggest lessons we can learn from these ten social media mistakes.

Top Lessons Learned From This Year’s Biggest Social Media Failures

1. Think Before You Tweet – This should be a no-brainer however the nature of Twitter’s fast moving conversations can result in users tweeting out messages they later regret. If you are going to participate in Twitter be sure to review these best practices.
2. Brands Don’t Own Earned Media – The call it “earned media” for a reason and it is very difficult for brands to try and control this especially on Twitter. Several brands have seen their attempts to create earn media via hashtag contests and promoted tweets spiral out of control (just look at McDonald’s failed attempted). If you are looking to leverage earned media check out these tips.

What other examples and lessons learned can you think of? Please share them in the comment section below.