Engaging or Imploding?
Twitter is hard. Believe it or not, there is a right and a wrong way to tweet. And while some people get it, others definitely don’t. I think I’m a really funny tweeter – usually because I’m not afraid to tastefully laugh at myself. Granted, I try REALLY hard, but I think I’m hilarious.
There’s just something about making people chuckle that I think is really rewarding.
But I think in a quest to adequately target and entice a young and spry audience, American brands have taken to Twitter in a way that’s – well – bad. Engagement is great. Actually it’s more than great. It is so, so, so, SO important. But humor is so sensitive these days that it’s important to really dissect your jokes before you post them online.
Let’s take a look at a couple examples I found on BuzzFeed this weekend.
For starters, using a national crisis as a way to promote your company: bad.
*Cough* Kmart
In this case, Kmart took to Twitter after the Newton school shooting and after expressing their condolences, threw in their own promotional hashtag: “#Fab15Toys”…
#No
In MSN’s case, it’s not necessarily a good idea to ask fans to ‘like’ someone’s death announcement, especially when it’s the Bee Gees co-founder, Robin Gibb… I think it might be time for a ‘dislike’ button (your move, Facebook).
For American Rifleman the trouble came when their scheduled tweet beginning with “Good morning, shooters.” was fired just hours after the Aurora shooting. (Maybe we should start double-checking, eh?)
And finally, when you’re linked to more than one account, please make sure you are tweeting from the correct one. Because Chrysler’s social media manager definitely forgot to check and ended up bashing his city and its drivers when he tweeted out that no one in Detroit knew how to “f***ing drive”.
Point is, American brands have to learn how to engage properly without ruining their reputation in the process. Engage. Don’t Implode.
So @Whataburger. I would like to personally thank you for being so *~(cOoL)~* on Twitter. Like really. So cool. Keep engaging the right way. Keep giving away free stuff. And please, for the love of God, please keep making the best burgers on the planet.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariellecalderon/19-companies-that-made-huge-social-media-fails#.bgebmW0Q0
