Social Media Screw-ups: the updated history from Kryptonite to Kenneth Cole (and beyond)
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Last year, SMI published one of its most popular pieces of research, a history of the social media crisis and its impact on corporate communications and brand reputation. Published last October, “Social Media Screw Ups – a short history” was viewed over 110,000 times on Slideshare. We’re pleased to announce we’ve just updated it with a series of new cringeworthy corporate gaffes from the past year that include insights into how they occurred and how they could be avoided in the future.
What are the big take-away points from our history of social media screw-ups? We’ve gone back to the Kryptonite lock fiasco of 2004 when this iconic brand foolishly underestimated the power of the blogosphere, a gaffe that cost the company $15 million in sales. The good news is that companies are much more attuned to what the everyday consumer is saying about them and their products. But they’re still messing up, forgetting that most basic rule: you’re dealing with humans, not a credit card number or email account or username; be human yourself!
Case in point: one of the biggest reputational flubs of the year came from Airbnb, which allegedly tried to shush up a blogger who’d been burgled by an Airbnb customer. Why? The founder didn’t want the bad vibes to sink a pending funding round.
There are a series of other mistakes, some new (dropping the F-bomb on Tweetdeck, only to seeing the offending Tweet end up on the brand’s main Twitter feed) and some old (callous misuse of hashtags, or trying to shoehorn a Tweet for a new clothing line in amid updates about brave souls trying to topple the autocratic Mubarak regime in Cairo.)
There are plenty more examples, so I’ll just get right to the presentation. We hope you enjoy it! And, as we say at the end, let us know if there are any you’d like to see mentioned in the next update.
Editor’s Note: we’re pleased to be bringing back our popular instructional workshop: Social Media Crisis Communications next month, to be held in London on February 29. Again, we will be teaming with Neil Chapman, former comms chief at BP. He has some amazing stories and lessons to share from his experience with the Deepwater Horizon spill. It will be an interesting day dedicated to reputation management and crisis communications. Come join us!
Email: training[at] socialmediainfluence.com for more information.
12 Comments »
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[...] deal with actual complaints on these discussion forums (Cisco). You can follow our analysis here in this report: “Social Media Screw-ups: the updated history from Kryponite to Kenneth Cole (and [...]
[...] Social Media Screw-ups: the updated history from Kryponite to Kenneth Cole (and beyond) - If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from writing these posts, it’s that our followers revel in the misfortune of others! More examples of where social media went wrong here. [...]
[...] Spesso si perde la testa proprio nel momento in cui sarebbe fondamentale usarla, come dimostra la timeline realizzata da Social Media Influence che raccoglie i principali casi internazionali di cattiva [...]
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[...] decade exposing corporate villains of Climate Change. Their innovative work appeared in our “History of Social Media Screw-ups” for their punking of Chevron late last year. Undoubtedly, the biggest bomb detonated by The [...]
[...] My thanks to Kate Thompson at Volkswagen for highlighting this fascinating slideshow of ‘Social Media Screw-ups’. Among the catastrophic cavalcade of on-line errors, there are some clear lessons for all of us in communications when entering the brave new world of social media – be smart, be sensitive, be honest and, most importantly, don’t underestimate the collective effect many hundreds of thousands of people can have on your brand’s reputation. http://socialmediainfluence.com/2011/09/05/social-media-screw-ups-the-updated-history/ [...]
[...] investment in social, companies are getting blindsided by the social media-fueled PR crisis, as our recent research into this shows. Here then are a few important tips to consider for integrating social media into [...]
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[...] investment in social, companies are getting blindsided by the social media-fueled PR crisis, as our recent research into this shows. Here then are a few important tips to consider for integrating social media into [...]
[...] Yet are any of these definitions still valid in today’s contemporary society? A society in which so much has changed that the very notion of the practice of public relations seems anachronistic to many where anyone today with an internet connection is a communicator and, often, seen as an organization’s spokesman? And when news events develop at the speed of the internet? [...]
[...] For more ideas on what to do and what not do with Social Media, check out a great SMI article from earlier this year: http://socialmediainfluence.com/2011/09/05/social-media-screw-ups-the-updated-history/. [...]
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