You don’t want Justin Timberlake & Jimmy Fallon (or even worse the 316 million active twitter users) turning your hashtag into a bashtag. Below are some cautionary tales to consider before you launch your #nextbigthing.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall. McDonald’s went from twitter darling to twitter fail overnight. Their #meetthefarmers campaign was very well received on all social media channels – especially youtube.com where the 5 minute documentary shorts featuring farmers around the country lifted the brand to new heights. But they made a major PR faux pas almost immediately with the next campaign called #McDStories. They thought people would write in with nostalgic stories about their first Happy Meal…the twitterverse thought different.
The face that launched a 1000 memes. Susan Boyle was a D list entertainer until her PR folks inadvertently catapulted her to the top of the bashtag list. They forgot the cardinal rule of testing their hashtag with and without caps. #SusanAlbumParty reads VERY different from #susanalbumparty. If only this had been done on purpose…it would be on the TOP TEN BEST hashtag lists rather than the worse. Possible happy ending in this case – all publicity is good publicity.
Recent Comments