Beware of Social Media Fails

January 15, 2010 | Written by Priyanka Mathew

“Lavender”

“Black”

“White”

“Nude”

Look familiar? Well if you have a Facebook account and had signed into Facebook anytime last week, you’d recognize this peculiar trend. These status updates, which are mainly from girls, are the colors of the bras they were wearing at the time of the update. Scandalous. Why again? Because of breast cancer awareness.

Have you watched the bikini-clad girl taking a shower and singing the song of your choice through a showercam? Just choose the song you want her to sing and the bikini you want her to wear and watch her take a shower through a “guilt free” showercam experience. Obviously, this would lead you to go out and buy a breakfast burger at Burger King.

And did you hear about Skittles streaming a twitter feed right onto their home page for everyone to see? Well, even if you did, I’m sure you didn’t give it a second thought until right now.

Social media is a fantastic tool that has the power to spread news at phenomenal speeds and engage your audience ways that were impossible even 10 years ago. However, it’s important to remember that not all social media can help you meet your goals. Using viral methods can prove to be useless if it has no direct correlation to your brand message and especially if there is no call to action after the fact. Although it may generate buzz, it doesn’t motivate people to act or purchase, which is presumably the goal of the marketing campaign. The same applies to the Burger King showercam and Motrin Mom and countless other social media campaigns gone wrong. Not only did they stray from their marketing message (eat burgers, buy Motrin), they managed to offend and isolate large groups of people, most of whom were in their target audience.

With all that being said, there are those companies who hit the nail right on the head. Starbucks’ “My Starbucks Idea” gained rave reviews from their customers just a year after they were thought to be oversaturated and irrelevant. “My Starbucks Idea” encourages customers to co-create the next new Starbucks trend by allowing them to submit ideas on a website and then vote and discuss. The most popular ones get implemented. Not without its risks, but according to Adweek, Starbucks even surpassed Coca-Cola as the most popular brand on Facebook last year.

So what it really boils down to are the fundamentals of any marketing 101 course: know your audience, don’t offend people, align with your brand identity, and for god’s sake, be interesting! Because if you miss everything else, at least you’ll have your 15 seconds.

More from RFI Studios

• Social Media Talking Points – Right Brain
• Social Media Raises Customer Expectations – Right Brain
• Good Social is Good Business – Right Brain
• User Generated Media: The Movie! – Right Brain
• Is social media a right or a privilege? – Right Brain

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