Maccas said what?!
Next year marks the 20th anniversary of LinkedIn. After LinkedIn came Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and of course the behemoth that is TikTok plus so many more.
What’s the point of this social media roll call? Well, it’s to demonstrate just how young social media is, in fact, if social media lived in the United States, they couldn’t buy a beer in a bar.
The explosion of communication and social media experts has created an entire sub-division within the marketing industry. University courses have sprung up and everyone is scrambling to understand this highly lucrative yet fraught with danger beast. Mistakes are bound to happen but due to the number of eyes on screens, these mistakes have a greater potential to damage your brand.
So here are some of the top lessons we’ve learned from high profile companies who made BIG mistakes.
ARE YOU LOGGED IN UNDER YOUR ACCOUNT OR THE COMPANY’S ACCOUNT?
Look this might seem like social media 101 but when you’re posting always double check the account you’re posting under. McDonald’s and Chrysler have both fallen victim to tweets that should have been posted under an employee’s personal account. Their language and message certainly did not fit the company’s brand strategy. You can avoid this simple mistake by using a social media management tool like MySocial that is only linked to your business accounts.
ARE YOU NEWSJACKING?
It’s considered by experts to be the biggest social media faux pas, using current events to promote your brand in a way that could be construed as tone-deaf or insensitive. The recent passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has given us an avalanche of examples of how not to jump on the condolences bandwagon. If you’re going to post on a current news item ensure your post engages with the community, shares an interesting perspective, or has a direct link to your brand. Above all else be authentic and empathetic. Domino’s had to turn off all replies to its condolence tweet following a barrage of negative comments and CrossFitUK was widely criticised for its “Queen Elizabeth II workout” that included a “1-minute rest in silence’.
CHECK YOUR IMAGES AND TAKE TIME TO EDIT
In 2016 Coca-Cola wanted to demonstrate just how much Russians loved their bubbly beverages by tweeting a cartoon map of Russia. The problem was they used a pre-WWII map meaning entire areas of the country that were annexed to Russia in the Soviet days weren’t there. It led to #BanCocaCola going viral.
Everyone has tight deadlines to upload content but spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, researching a hashtag to ensure its not trending on a controversial subject and checking your Shutterstock images for accuracy is vital. Social media management platforms like MySocial have the ability to send content to a colleague for review before posting, these extra few minutes and second set of eyes could save your brand a lot of pain once published.
UNDERSTAND THE WORLD AROUND YOU
As a media monitoring company, we’re particularly interested in posts that appear to be unaware of what’s currently happening in the world, otherwise known as ‘posting in a vacuum’. Adidas had a cracker of a bungle in 2017 when they sent out emails to customers they knew had run the Boston Marathon, the subject line was ‘Congrats, you survived the Boston Marathon’. This seems harmless enough, running a marathon is really hard, however after the bombing of this famous race in 2013 which killed 3 people and injured over 200 the wording for this correspondence was considered particularly insensitive.
Finally, the best lesson the team at MyMedia has learned was at the recent State of Social Conference in Perth and that was to be genuine. At it’s core social media is a social platform (funny that) which means people want authenticity, they want real stories, real people, real voices. You must create content that aligns with company values but is delivered in a personable way that embodies empathy. Good luck.
Thank you to pcmag.com, forbes.com, mediasmiths.com.au, cbcnews.com, entrepreneur.com, cbinsights.com and nbn.com.au for providing research material used for this blog.