Of social media blunders and epic face palms.

I love social media.

I realize that a large portion of that has to do with my generation, but I thrive in this place of instant communication and constant connection. It’s a tool that has allowed me to connect with someone like-minded in the UK through just the sharing of photos, video’s and impromptu-squealing at Dr. Who gifs. It’s allowed me to access the news headlines right away and hear about historical, world-changing decisions that have been made, instantly. It’s also opened up the doors for online bullying, falsified information and online scamming/harassment.

So when a company fails to grasp the importance of social media, or how to properly make the most of it makes the inner-PR person in me cringe. For this I’ve rustled up three examples of companies shirking their social accountability in the online world.

The first culprit: Applebee’s.

In what’s probably the biggest social media meltdown I’ve witnessed ever, the social media coordinator at Applebee’s failed to follow one simple rule of social media as a business: Don’t try to censor people.

After waitress, Chelsea Welch, posted a photo of a snarky receipt on Reddit as a joke and was fired, the online community stepped in to try to help. They were met with mucho snark from the Applebee’s Facebook page. After posting a status at around 3pm, Applebee’s tried to soothe wounds by saying customer confidentiality is the most important thing – which would be okay if they didn’t have pictures of happy receipt notes written by customers plastered on their Facebook page. They were called on this.

Probably works better if you don't have only good personal information up on your FB pages..

 

So people snarked back – which ended up in Applebee’s Facebook page hiding comments from view and banning people from their page, in what would be the start of a giant “I’m a thirteen year-old having a hissy fit because everyone is being rude to me” type of argument. So Applebee’s took a little break and regrouped…and started tagging people and pasting the same comment over and over and over again with different people tagged. At this point I was shaking my head – and then it got better.

According to R.L Stollar – at around 3:06 am – Applebee’s began tagging people…and arguing with them. *face palm*.

Go home Applebees, you're drunk.

 

Now I realize the situation is more black and white than it appears on the internet, but this just goes to show you why social media is important. This could have been avoided – instead (as a good friend Shannon put) they took the, “we’ve seemed to have found ourselves in a pit of toxic waste – QUICK PASS THE SHOVEL SO WE CAN KEEP DIGGING!” approach.

Article on this major meltdown can be found here.

Culprit numero deux: HMV

In what I thought was the most entertaining social media fail came from the HMV head office in the UK, where, employees were brought into HR and fired in mass numbers one day. Unfortunately the company didn’t think that far ahead and ended up firing their social media planner who live-tweeted the whole event on the company account.

 

For 30 minutes Twitter lapped up the tweets, laughing as the HMV execs scrambled to figure out what the heck was going on. Probably my favourite tweet of the whole ordeal came from the Marketing Director, when he asked, “How do I shut down Twitter?”

The woman responsible took to her personal Twitter saying that she felt this was an important opportunity to push the point home of why social media was important to their company, something the senior management had been overlooking since she started. While a lot of people are saying this just came from her being ticked about being sacked, I have to say I’m agreeing with her. If you’re already being fired, why not drive the point home about social media. You know for a fact they’re going to be cognisant of their social media accounts now, and probably make sure the holder of the passwords isn’t on the chopping block next time.

Article can be found here.

And finally: The Girl Scouts.

How did these happy-go-lucky cookie sellers make it on here? Well it seems that they have refused to embrace any kind of technology while simultaneously crushing the dreams and hopes an 11 and a half year old girl.

This all started when Emma, a Girl Scout, thought of a way to both sell cookies and be able to raise money to buy and send cookies to soldiers serving overseas. What could possibly be wrong with this plan? Well she promoted it through social media and was asking for donations via Paypal. Apparently the Girl Scouts has a strict cash or cheque only policy and although they tweeted Emma’s account saying great job – they backpedalled when they found out funds were collected online and told her she couldn’t do it.

Cash or cheque bitches, or we're not ponying up the goods.

 

How did this come to be? Apparently a jealous mother/ Girl Scout leader felt as though Emma wasn’t learning life-lessons like she would if she went door to door because the internet “isn’t real life”. Obviously this woman wasn’t talking with HMV and Applebee’s execs because they would have quickly told her how “real life” the internet can get.  

Let’s take a step back here – a Girl Scout wants to sell and donate boxes of Girl Scout cookies and donate them all for soldiers overseas and the issue is she isn’t taking cash or cheque? Seriously!?! This story made me mad because we’re always pushing for people to do social good and make the world awesome – as long as they’re only doing so by “nationwide guidelines”.

Article can be found here.

Social media is an important staple of our communication right now, both socially and corporately. I do see a major divide in social media use and understanding and no, that’s not just in people’s age. Social media, when executed properly can be key in avoiding crisis or managing crisis and it can also be gasoline on the fire. I am very interested, as a social media junkie, to see where social media is going to go in the next few years.

Any thoughts or other examples – please send them on down!