Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Twitter Brand Fails

Shortly after this week's lecture on social media, Fast Company posted this article about @urtweetsrbad, an anonymous Twitter account that mocks awkward, lazy, and poorly written tweets from corporate accounts.

One example of when brand tweets go wrong is an ill-conceived tweet from AT&T that takes advantage of the 12th anniversary of 9/11 to advertise a smartphone.  AT&T deleted the tweet after a predictable public outcry ensued.

The anonymous person behind @urtweetsrbad, a marketing/advertising industry veteran, stated in an interview that "I think we can at least hold ourselves to higher creative standards than tweeting '#TGIF' every Friday."

A recent gem from @urtweetsrbad is from Pepto-Bismol, which attempted to engage consumers with the question: "The most awkward places to experience, diarrhea? Go."

After the poster noticed the errant comma, he stuck a second foot in his mouth with the following: "Speaking of awkward...punctuation misplacement can be so awkward. But still, not as awkward as diarrhea. Right?"

Although brands can quickly and effectively engage consumers using social media, a lesson here is that brands can undermine their public perception just as quickly if they aren't careful with what they post.

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