I clearly remember when I started working as an Online Marketing intern at Printsome (we print t-shirts!) and was given the task of taking care of the company’s twitter account. Generally speaking I’m not a shy person, but something about having to tweet as a business and not as myself made me uneasy – that’s not even mentioning the mythical K in our follower count. The possibility of tweeting something that could cause uproar in the social network and publicly shame the company stressed me.
Even though time has passed and I realise now that it was an overreaction, the possibility of sending the incorrect message is still on the back of my head. Twitter is an amazing tool that allows you to speak your mind quickly and efficiently. Use it correctly and you could become the voice of your community. Use it poorly, and you could screw yourself royally in 140 characters. You never know what a single wrong tweet can cause.
There are plenty of examples of twitter fails since businesses and brands alike have taken to the social media to gain more visibility and awareness. A common example is using too many hashtags, a consequence of the ambition to gain more visibility. Another one is when a community manager tries to be witty and crack a joke during a sensitive time. That one never works.
Other twitter mishaps include misinterpreting a hashtag, being too quick to reply in a hot-headed moment, or simply hiring a community manager that doesn’t care about the brand’s image (could probably also be the cause of the earlier examples). Regardless of the situation, Twitter’s community is ruthless and will quickly react to any slip up!
The Social Media Fails Quiz
So in order to help community managers out there make better decisions, we have put together this amazing quiz showing possible tweets that could have been sent by brands. Your job is to guess if someone actually tweeted that or not.
Maybe this quiz will help you realise the horrible outcomes that can come from appointing the wrong person to be the voice of a company. OR maybe you won’t learn anything, but at least you’ll be entertained!
Printsome is a charming custom t-shirt printing agency delivering from Milton Keynes to Oxford, and anywhere in between. For a nice chat about Social Media Fails or simply want to say hello… get in touch!
