While undoubtedly powerful, social media can be tricky to navigate for marketing. Being a relatively new channel, much of brand social media is still experimental, so companies are bound to commit a few social media fails now and then. Below are eight examples of brand social media scandals and mistakes to avoid so you can craft better campaigns for your small business.
1. Entenmann’s Tweet: Surfing on the Wrong Hashtag
Hashtags are the keywords of social media. They’re a great way to let your content be seen by many people and be part of a larger conversation and grow your brand presence online. However, as with any other social media trend, knowing the context and origin behind a trending hashtag is always crucial before joining one, and could potentially save your brand from a major blunder.
One example of such a blunder is from the bakery brand Entenmann’s. On Twitter, the brand inadvertently joined the trending #notguilty hashtag to garner engagement—without first checking its origin and context. In reality, the hashtag was from a real criminal court trial, in which Twitter users were voicing their opinions. The company eventually took down the tweet and posted an apology after receiving some backlash.
The verdict: While Entenmann’s Twitter strategy was essentially harmless, and in any other situation, potentially effective, the brand’s big pitfall was failing to do due diligence before joining a trend. Especially with a hashtag as common as #notguilty, it’s essential to always do a quick check, or else you might end up joining the wrong online discussion.
Key takeaways:
- Always check a trending hashtag’s origin and context before joining in on the discussion.
- If you do end up unintentionally joining the wrong hashtag, admit your mistake, delete your post, and post a sincere apology.
2. Draper James’ Instagram Dress Giveaway: Unclear Contest Mechanics
Social media contests and giveaways can be a great way to boost engagement—they’re one of the best ways to market your business online without breaking the bank. However, one major obstacle is in the mechanics. Social media contests are no different from real-world contests, so you need to be sure to clearly define and communicate your contest or giveaway rules and contest requirements to eliminate confusion among participants.
This proved to be retail brand Draper James’ biggest misstep in an Instagram dress giveaway, which offered to give away dresses to every teacher as a token of support throughout the pandemic. However, the Instagram caption only mentioned registering via a link, without referencing any limitations. Soon enough, the link garnered nearly 1 million registrations—the problem is, the company only had 250 dresses to give away.
The verdict: Draper James’ Instagram giveaway is a classic example of failing to communicate a social media contest clearly and thoroughly, and having far too many participants than you can handle as a result. Draper James’ social media blunder could have easily been avoided with a few copy edits that clarified their giveaway’s mechanics—for example, stating that dresses could only be given away to the first 250 registrants.
Key takeaways:
- Plan social media contests and giveaways thoroughly, and clearly state the rules, requirements, and other mechanics in your post.
- Make sure your social media copy is clear and understandable. Before posting, have them tested and copyedited by others to ensure that nothing is amiss or unclear.
3. Burger King’s International Women’s Day Tweet: Clickbait on the Wrong Platform
In the digital age, we’re all familiar with brands riding on special occasions to launch special promotions and campaigns. While there is nothing inherently wrong with that, Burger King’s 2021 Women’s Day Tweet is a great example of how to do it the wrong way.
The tweet starts with a simple sentence stating that “women belong in the kitchen.” While obviously meant as clickbait to get readers to engage with the tweet (the thread announced the launch of a culinary scholarship program for women), Twitter users were quick to call the brand out for promoting outdated ideas. Needless to say, the tactic backfired, and Burger King ultimately took the tweet down to avoid a potential social media scandal.
The verdict: Controversy as a marketing tactic is nothing new, but it’s always tricky to get right, especially on social media. In Burger King’s case, they failed to take into account Twitter’s format as a platform, where users only see one tweet at a time instead of a whole thread. This caused their headline to be misunderstood, and users found the brand’s attempt at clickbait to be tone-deaf—creating one of the biggest social media failure examples in recent memory.
Key takeaways:
- When planning a social media campaign, always take your social media platform’s format and user behavior into account.
- Be sure your copy headlines aren’t tone-deaf and offensive—again, always check and copyedit.
4. Audi’s #PaidMyDues Instagram Campaign: Irrelevant Social Content
Taking risks can sometimes reap great rewards for your brand—but not always. A brand that learned this the hard way with a social media fail on Instagram is Audi, with its 2014 #PaidMyDues Instagram campaign. As a concept, the campaign was a noble one, meant to highlight Audi drivers in a video series to humanize the brand and be more relatable to its customer base.
While the campaign was launched with good intentions, Audi’s Instagram followers eventually turned against the new direction, finding the videos and images of drivers irrelevant to what they wanted from the brand on Instagram. Soon enough, Audi’s Instagram comments were flooded with negative comments, and the brand returned to posting regular car images after a few weeks.
The verdict: Audi’s #PaidMyDues Instagram campaign was clearly intended to humanize the brand and express appreciation for its customers. However, while made in good faith, the campaign is a clear example of the consequences of not doing comprehensive research about your audience, their interests, and what they want from you on social media.
Key takeaways:
- Always know your audience, especially what they want and expect from you on social media.
- Do intensive research to be sure all your marketing risks are well-calculated.
Not sure what your audience is looking for on social media? Use our customer persona templates to research and define your ideal customer types in order to avoid social media fails like the one above.
5. Listerine’s Partnership With Influencer Scarlett London: Brand & Influencer Mismatch
Influencer marketing is a great way to introduce your brand to niche audiences and can be effective when done correctly. However, one of the biggest social media mistakes by companies doing influencer marketing is to partner with influencers who don’t accurately match or represent their brand values. This was the case with Listerine’s partnership with lifestyle influencer Scarlett London on Instagram.
As an Instagram (IG) influencer, Scarlett London is best known for her lifestyle, fashion, and wellness content. So when one of her lifestyle posts appeared advertising a paid partnership with Listerine in the caption, followers found the overall effect to be jarring and inauthentic, with many finding London’s content to have no correlation to the Listerine brand or product at all.
The verdict: While there is nothing inherently wrong with Scarlett London’s post, this particular partnership illustrates how quickly influencer marketing can backfire without the proper planning and research. Listerine might have better benefited from partnering with a different influencer who more accurately represented their customers, or if they had given better directions regarding content and caption.
Key takeaways:
- When doing influencer marketing, do intensive research on influencers to ensure their content matches your brand’s core values.
- When you do have an influencer partnership, give clear directions regarding post content and caption, including the type of image you want them to post, the caption’s tone, and so on.
6. U.S. Department of Health’s Facebook Meme: Meme & Audience Mismatch
Trend-jacking on social media is one way to show that your brand is keeping with the times, and a popular way of doing so is via social media memes. A staple of social media culture, memes play a prominent role in how people communicate on the internet, and a new meme goes viral seemingly every week. Naturally, a digital strategy for many brands is to ride along with memes’ popularity and put their own spin on it.
Sure enough, many brands find success in meme-jacking and garner tons of engagement, but there are cases when they completely miss the mark, as with the U.S. Department of Health’s Facebook post, which used the then-viral “doge” meme to announce its health insurance program. Being such a jarring deviation from the organization’s usual content, the meme drew confusion from followers instead, drawing attention away from the main message.
The verdict: Meme marketing on social media has been around for a few years now, and has proven effective for engaging with followers in fun, lighthearted ways. However, they take a certain understanding of internet culture to get right, and if it seems forced, internet users will know. And, certain memes appeal only to certain audiences—the current most viral meme might not appeal to your followers’ taste, as was the case with the U.S. Health Department.
Key takeaways:
- Before riding on a meme, always know its full context and origin, then determine if it fits your brand values and follower base.
- When dealing with a serious topic (or if your brand is a highly authoritative one, like a branch of the government), consider whether humor would be a social media blunder.
7. Bioré’s TikTok Creator Partnership: Authenticity Done the Wrong Way
TikTok is one of today’s most prominent social platforms, with its trademark short-form narrative videos offering a new sense of authenticity and personal connection. Brands have since taken advantage of the platform to promote products in more personal ways, especially through creator partnerships. One such brand is Bioré, which recently partnered with TikTok creator Cecilee Max-Brown to create relatable content promoting their products.
The resulting TikTok video shows Brown in a “get ready with me” routine as she discusses struggling with mental health issues, all while applying Bioré’s products as part of her morning routine. While the video is undoubtedly personal, many found it off-putting to imply that the brand’s skincare products helped alleviate mental health issues, and called the brand out for capitalizing on people’s personal struggles.
The verdict: It’s no surprise that many brands want to harness TikTok’s knack for authenticity to reach customers in more personal ways. However, the one vital mistake on the platform is being overtly sales-y and putting your brand first and foremost, in effect making even organic content feel like a TV ad—as was the case with Bioré. On TikTok, marketing is all about being genuine and engaged—not promotional.
Key takeaways:
- One of the biggest social media fails is being overly promotional, but exponentially so on TikTok. To gain a captive audience, always be genuine and authentic and put your customers first.
- Don’t present your product as something it’s not. Even if today’s audiences expect more social responsibility from brands than ever, be sure to discuss them in sensitive, responsible ways.
8. Mastercard’s Failed Twitter Hashtag Campaign: Garnering Credibility on the Wrong Platform
Mastercard’s Twitter hashtag campaign for the 2014 Brit Awards still represents one of the biggest social media fails by companies in recent memory. As the event’s primary sponsor, Mastercard hoped to maximize its brand presence as much as possible. Part of its strategy was requesting journalists covering the event to tweet using the brand’s official hashtag throughout the night in exchange for a ticket.
However, things didn’t quite go as planned. Many journalists took offense at Mastercard’s email, which also included scripts for suggested tweets at specific points throughout the night and requests to retweet from the brand’s official account. Journalists on Twitter accused the agency of being ignorant of journalism’s principles (editorial independence, for one), while others hijacked the hashtag to make fun of the brand’s social media blunder.
The verdict: Like any other brand, Mastercard (via its PR agency) naturally wanted to maximize its return on investment (ROI) as the main sponsor of a major event. However, its biggest misstep was not tailoring its campaign objectives to each platform, which led to its attempt to garner press credibility via Twitter—a platform much better suited for gaining awareness and engagement.
Key takeaways:
- Choose the right platform for each marketing objective (e.g., don’t incorporate press coverage into social media campaigns).
- Always remember that social media is a platform most effective for awareness, engagement, and customer interaction—not for increasing credibility.
How to Avoid Social Media Fails (Do’s & Don’ts)
While social media can be a tricky space to navigate, it still offers a wealth of opportunities for your small business’ growth. And while there is no one-size-fits-all solution for how to use social media to grow your business, a few basics stand the test of time, such as knowing your audience and doing significant research.
Here are some key do’s and dont’s for social media marketing if you want to avoid social media fails like those above:
- Do have a social media plan: A well-researched, strategic social media plan can save you from social media disasters by defining your audience, tone, goals, brand voice, and best practices for marketing on each channel.
- Do know your audience: Social media audiences are highly segmented and differ on each platform. To avoid blunders, you’ll need to understand your audience’s interests and habits on each platform. Our list of the top paid social media platforms outlines the audience characteristics of the most-used channels.
- Do play to each platform’s strengths: Each social media platform is unique—Twitter is for short-form content or quick news updates, while TikTok thrives at authenticity, and so on. When planning your social media strategy, research and understand each platform’s ecosystem so you can use it appropriately.
- Do significant research: Many of the social media blunders above were a direct consequence of failing to do enough research. When planning a campaign, do background checks on trends, influencers, hashtags, and so on before associating them with your brand.
- Don’t crosspost everything: One of the biggest social media mistakes is to crosspost the same content across all your social channels. Something that plays well on one platform might even hurt your brand on another channel. Have a separate strategy for each social platform, and focus particularly on the platforms that best fit your brand.
- Do post regularly: Content drives social media. If you want your brand to remain relevant, publish fresh, valuable content regularly. Plan out a content calendar that addresses your audience’s interests and needs, and follow each platform’s best practices for how often to post.
- But, don’t clog your followers’ news feeds: Good content strategy is about finding the sweet spot between being memorable without being so persistent or promotional that followers block you from their news feeds. While it varies for each platform, according to Hootsuite, a good frequency to aim for is at least a few times per week.
- Don’t be too self-promotional: People use social channels to interact with others and generally want to have a leisurely time. One of the biggest company social media fails is in being too overtly self-promotional, which can turn people away from your brand. Instead, focus on building genuine relationships and delivering value to your customers.
- Do interact with users: More than ever, social media users expect to be able to communicate with brands seamlessly. When people comment under your posts, be sure to reply to them (ideally within 24 hours), especially if they have a question or concern. You can also track brand mentions online using a brand monitoring tool so you can respond quickly.
- Do own up to mistakes: Finally, if you do find yourself in a social media blunder, don’t fret. Own up to your mistake, apologize to anyone it may have harmed, and, if needed, delete your initial post. Deflecting your errors will only worsen your situation and significantly hurt your brand’s reputation. Acknowledging your mistakes shows that your brand actively listens to customers and puts their needs first and foremost.
How to Address a Social Media Scandal or Blunder
It’s best to take preventive measures to avoid making corporate social media fails, such as following a social media plan and doing intensive research. But it’s sometimes inevitable to fall into one. Social media mistakes can happen to anyone—even the biggest corporations—and what matters most is how you respond and act on them afterward. If you find yourself in a social media scandal or blunder, here are tips on how to respond:
- Acknowledge your mistake: Even if you made your post with good intentions, negative feedback means that it still caused harm in some way, and the best thing to do is to be apologetic and acknowledge your error—both outwardly and internally. Your customers’ concerns should always come first, and their feedback can help steer your company in the right direction moving forward.
- Address the issue directly: Skirting around or completely ignoring your blunder will do your brand more harm than good, so the best course of action is to address it head-on. Publish a statement quickly and keep it clear, concise, and focused solely on the issue, including how your company is learning from it and committed to doing better in the future. For help crafting your message, find out how to write a crisis communication announcement.
- Be apologetic and appreciative: It isn’t enough to just address the issue outright—how you address it matters just as much and will determine how customers will perceive your brand moving forward. To keep your brand in good standing, keep your statement apologetic and appreciative—apologize for your mistake, then thank your followers for calling it out.
- Respond to comments politely: You’ll likely also get a considerable amount of negative comments flooding your notifications and inboxes. While it may seem like an impossible battle, try to respond to each politely and considerately, and show that you hear their concern. Take note of their criticism, and communicate what you’re doing to alleviate the situation.
- Make things right: Depending on the blunder you find yourself in, you may have the opportunity to make it right and come out even better than before. For example, if a customer called your brand out on social media for getting their order wrong, sending them a gift box could improve your standing—in fact, many brands have found success with this strategy. Think of ways to give back to your customers genuinely.
- Follow through on your commitments: Finally, every social media blunder is an opportunity for growth. Whatever issue you corrected and the knowledge you gained from it, make sure to follow through on your commitment to do better, whether that includes changing a store policy or revising an entire brand strategy, and so on.
Pro tip: Having the right social media strategy can reap numerous rewards for your business, but it can be a lot for any small business owner to handle. For expert help, partnering with a digital marketing agency could be your best option—and to help you choose, we rounded up the six best social media marketing agencies for small businesses. Or, check out how to hire a social media manager for your business full time.
6 Statistics on Social Media Mistakes & Best Practices
Social media mistakes don’t have to define your brand. With social media growing exponentially every day, customers are expecting more than ever from the brand’s social channels. Check out the statistics below to better understand today’s social media landscape.
- Most social media users (44%) expect brands to respond to queries and concerns in one to 12 hours.
- Meanwhile, on average, most brands (59%) actually respond to queries in under two hours—surpassing some customers’ expectations.
- However, when people post negative commentary on a brand’s social media page, 63% of social media users expect brands to respond within the hour.
- 81% of social media users will unfollow influencers or creators if they post social content more than a few times per week—proving that consumers value authenticity over brand promotion.
- Moreover, nine out of 10 consumers believe that harmful content on brands’ social media profiles can negatively impact their overall reputation.
- Negative social comments can affect purchase decisions too—the study also found that harmful comments on a brand’s social media pages can deter 43% of consumers from purchasing from them.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Bottom Line
There’s no overstating the power of social media in ushering in new ways for brands and consumers to interact with one another. Social media allows for more personal and authentic connections than ever, and while it can be a tricky space to navigate, its benefits far outweigh its risks in the long run—all it takes is the proper know-how. Learn from the social media fails of the brands above and use them to create better campaigns for your business.