With social media being so easily accessible it also becomes very easy to mess something up or post something by mistake. No matter how quickly this mistake gets deleted it can almost be guaranteed that at least one person saw it and saved it.
#Susanalbumparty
By far the funniest of recent social media fails was the hashtag created by Susan Boyle’s promotional team about her new album being released. The hashtag read ‘#susanalbumparty” which can easily be mistaken for something other than ‘Susan album party.’ Despite taking on a whole new meaning, it ended up becoming one of the most retweeted hashtags in the world, so essentially was pretty successful, before it was deleted.
A Better Amercia
When Mitt Romney was running for president his team decided that a perfect way to connect with the people was to create an app called ‘With Mitt.’ The problem was that the creators had a bit of trouble spelling the countries’ name and lead to one of the slogans reading “A Better Amercia.” ‘Amercia’ ended up trending on Twitter and there was no shortage of responses to the ridiculous spelling mistake, even after they corrected it a few hours later. The Romney team never commented on the incident.
HMV Mass Execution
When HMV laid off 190 jobs in February, one angry employee hacked into the Twitter account to express their anger at the situation. Tweets about the ‘mass execution’ included “There are over 60 of us being fired at once!” “Sorry we’ve been quiet for so long. Under contract we’ve been unable to say a word, or- more importantly- tell the truth.” and “Just overheard our marketing director (he’s staying folks!) ask ‘how do I shut down Twitter?’” The moral of this story? Always make sure to have a strong password.
Belvedere Always Goes Down Smoothly
Belvedere Vodka really got things wrong when they created an ad campaign and posted it on their Facebook and Twitter pages depicting basically some sort of sexual assault. The photo is a picture of a guy smiling, grabbing a girl who is clearly in distress and trying to get away. To make matters worse the text over the photo says, “Unlike some people, Belvedere always goes down smoothly.” The ad obviously received a negative response immediately and was removed. The second problem though, was their horrible apology, “We apologize to any of our fans who were offended by our recent tweet. We continue to be an advocate of safe and responsible drinking.” The ad can still be found all over the web and I doubt it boosted sales.
#Nowthatcherisdead
The most recent fail comes after the news of the death of Margaret Thatcher was announced. Critics of the conservative politician started the hashtag “#nowthatcherisdead.” This was obviously supposed to be read as ‘Now Thatcher is dead’ but some misread it as ‘Now that Cher is dead.’ This spiked tons of Cher fans mourning her death and quoting her song lyrics. Many began mocking the Cher fans, including the comedian Ricky Gervais who tried to clear up the confusion. Hashtags can help or hurt a situation, but it is probably best to check and double check that it isn’t accidentally saying something else.
