10 Awful Social Media Fails By Big Brands

June 2024 · 7 minute read

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If there is one thing we will be informed from social media it could be that infrequently it's best to just step away from the keyboard. Big Brands have a big responsibility in making sure their social media accounts keep up-to-the-minute, stay relevant and respond in suitable tactics. Unfortunately big brands have a way of failing at doing the above.

From indignant workers that take over the social media accounts to accidental pictures leaked, there is no way to recuperate from those fails. Apologizing seems to be the best course of action, despite the fact that one of the apologetic companies have lost 1000's of followers in in the future.

From the use of the dreaded ‘c’ word when talking a few 9 12 months old actress to mistakenly figuring out an exploding spacecraft to tweeting from the fallacious brand; be grateful you were not the workers accountable for those big emblem fails. Embarrassment, shame and disgust were all felt by these corporations. We have rounded up 10 of probably the most epic social media disasters by big brands and we problem you to stay a directly face while studying these horrific fails.

10. MasterCard

by way of:www.prweb.com

Sometimes the most important corporations fail within the worst of how and that's exactly what came about when MasterCard attempted to bully reporters into publishing promotional tweets with the hashtag #PricelessSurprises on the Brit Awards. Instead of agreeing the reporters went directly to their social media accounts and actually threw MasterCard underneath the bus; telling the world about the bribery with tweets corresponding to this one; “MasterCard and Brit Awards go Soviet! hacks MUST Mention the sponsors in their experiences or no press credentials!.” Things only were given worse for MasterCard as this trend endured for the entire day with the hashtag used for derogatory comments against them.

9. Bill Cosby

by the use of:www.dailymail.co.united kingdom

Bill Cosby is unmarried handedly responsible for this Twitter fail. He decided to put up a picture of himself on Twitter asking fans to “meme” him, considering this was once a good idea. Keeping in mind the numerous allegations against him, it's not surprising that many of us took this as a possibility to mock Cosby. His followers exploded with tweets such Cosby dressed in headphones and saying “Now I will’t listen you assert no”. Eventually the meme generator used to be preventing curse phrases but the fiasco didn't die down till the tweet used to be sooner or later got rid of and the meme generator shut down. This guy simply can not seem to stick out of hassle.

8. NRA

by way of:www.fitsnews.com

Guns and youngsters is not something to be take calmly and unfortunately for the NRA they chose the flawed time to send out this tweet that read “7 Ways Children Can Have Fun at the Shooting Range”, just a mere two days after a tragic gun vary twist of fate in Arizona. A nine 12 months old woman lost keep watch over of the Uzi and shot her gun instructor in the head killing him. The tweet connected to a story about new tactics children will have amusing shooting colorful objectives, zombies and extra. The tweet was once got rid of an hour later but the harm used to be completed with followers wondering why the NRA can be so silly to unlock this tale mere days after one of these tragedy.

7. Oreo

by the use of:adweek.com

 

In this example it can pay to have a real person in control of your social media accounts reasonably than a robot. It turns out that Oreo thought putting in place computerized retweets would make their lives a little bit more straightforward. Instead it turned into a Twitter disaster once they tweeted out to a consumer with an excessively offensive name. Followers of Oreo ripped in this ever popular company for allowing this to hit their Twitter feed and we believe they misplaced a large number of fans with this one. We expect extra from 1000000000 dollar cookie company.

6. Tesco

by means of:www.whatmobile.internet

The notorious horsemeat scandal in the UK in 2013 affected the British supermarket chain Tesco in additional techniques than one. First they were compelled to tug burgers off their shelves that were mentioned to have horsemeat in them. Mere days later Tesco despatched out this tweet at 11pm to its 47,000 fans; “It's sleepy time so we're off to hit the hay! See you at 8am for extra." Horse lovers were not amused and took to social media to let Tesco know that they were out of line. The next day the tweet was taken down and the company apologized; saying that the message was scheduled weeks before the scandal erupted. The lesson here is to never leave your social media accounts up to a robot.

5. LG

via:geekongadgets.com

Brands love to poke fun at each other but problems arise when it backfires and they actually end up making fun of themselves. That is what happened to LG when they tried to make a mockery of the iPhone. After alleged allegations that the iPhone 6 actually bends when it’s put in the pockets of tight pants LG sent out this tweet “Our phones don't bend, they're naturally curved :) #bendgate.”. Unfortunately for LG the time stamp on this tweet reads “Sent from Twitter on iPhone”. Yes that is correct LG actually sent this tweet out from an iPhone. We cannot imagine anything quite as embarrassing as trying to put down a company but then realizing you are actually endorsing them.

4. American Apparel

via;en.ozonweb.com

American Apparel probably does a much better job sourcing their information after this Tumblr disaster. They posted a picture of the Challenger spacecraft exploding on America’s birthday complete with the hashtags #smoke and #clouds. It was supposed to be a representation of fireworks; to celebrate July 4th. Instead it was a PR nightmare. After all social media accounts flooded with backlash, American Apparel took the picture down and replaced it with an apology; blaming the fail on a young international blogger that wasn't aware of what happened in 1986.

3. The Onion

via:www.theonion.com

"Everyone else seems afraid to say it, but that Quvenzhané Wallis seems roughly a c*nt, right? #oscars2013". There shouldn't even have to be an explanation on why this is wrong on so many levels. The funny satirical website; The Onion posted this tweet during the Oscars in the year 2013 and it lasted a whole hour on their feed before backlash forced them to pull it off. Let us remind you that Wallis is a nine year old actress that was carrying a puppy dog purse on the red carpet. CEO Steve Hannah put out a public apology letter the next morning to Wallis but the damage was done. No one will forget this Oscar tweet for a long time.

2. McDonalds

via:www.mcdonalds.ca

One of the most remembered Twitter fails goes to McDonalds who thought coming up with the hashtag “McDStories” would encourage people to share their heartwarming stories about their experiences. Instead Twitter users turned the hashtag into a “bashtag” and let McDonalds know how they really felt. From stories such as horrible customer service to being sick after eating the food to finding a worm in a fish fillet sandwich; this hashtag certainly got attention. Perhaps just not the kind of attention they were looking for. The hashtag promotion was cut short and only lasted a mere two hours before McDonalds realized it was doing more harm than good.

1. US Airways

via:commons.wikimedia.org

One of the worst social media fails comes from the airline giant; US Airways. In response to a customer complaint the airline tweeted that the customer could send their feedback and linked to what they thought was a feedback form. Unfortunately for this airline the link was actually a picture; a very inappropriate picture of a naked woman with a toy airplane inserted into her vagina. That’s correct; this airline tweeted a very inappropriate picture, and left it up for a whole hour. They did apologize and explain how the situation happened but it was far too late. This is one scandal that will be remembered for a very long time.

Sources: inc.com, econsultancy.com, nydailynews.com, telegraph.co.uk

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