I'm pretty flabbergasted about the McDonald's Twitter fiasco that happened last week. As this article points out, it's sooo easy for social media campaigns to be taken over/ co-opted by people who have an axe to grind with the sponsoring firms. Consumers have power -- lots and lots of power (even if that power is just a loud voice, or lots of voices)!
Two other famous examples of firms having social media go the wrong way for them:
Chevy Tahoe (2006)
and Nestle (2010).
Something interesting that I noticed about the headlines for the McD's story is how many of them used the word "hijack" to describe the consumer response. I don't think that handing the keys to someone and telling him/her to take a spin can be considered "hijacking," even if the driver decides to crash your car... on purpose.
Image sources:
http://static7.businessinsider.com/image/4f21ede3ecad042e63000004/twitter-mouth-taped.jpg
http://matthewbywater.squarespace.com/storage/nestle-on-facebook.png?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1315806918821
http://www.carinsurancecomparisonsites.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/new-car-handing-over-keys-300x199.jpg
Wow! That McDonalds article is very interesting. I have a twitter account (I use very rarely-mainly to follow celebrities), but some people can say some crazy things online. It's pretty incredible how much power the consumers have in this case, if I worked for McDonalds campaign, I would definitely get rid of that hashtag.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the Nestle conversation on facebook goes, that is also pretty unbelievable. Easy to lose customers when you can't respond positively!