12 social media attacks and disasters

One mistake is all it takes for social media to turn against your brand

For all the praise that brand advertisers have for social media, they must be aware that it’s very much a double-edged sword. And for all the free marketing, advertising and brand promotion via Facebook, Twitter and other platforms used to help build an identity and relationship with your customers, it can just as quickly turn on you and your brand.

Social media attacks occur for a number of reasons, the first being that your company probably messed up. It may not have been intentional, but something, somewhere down the line, went wrong enough for someone to complain and it was enough for others to vocalize that complaint en masse.

One mistake is all it takes for social media to turn against your brand:

Leveraging social media to its great advantage – Greenpeace launched this campaign, when volunteers began putting posters up around BNP branches and stickers on its ATM machines asking the public: “Do you know what your bank does with your money?”. Greenpeace also launched the “Unfriend Coal” targeting Facebook
Bank customers hitting back through social media – Bank of America rewarded one of their customers loyalty by repeatedly raising interest rate – than the customer turned to YouTube
Social media has shifted the balance of power – United repeatedly refused to listen and take corrective action after damaging the guitars of Dave Carroll
Act quickly to avoid a corporate image nightmare – Air Canada acted quickly to repair a wheelchair – special motorized chair – belonging to 10-year-old passenger Tanner Bawn fighting muscular dystrophy
Fail to understand the power of social media – Intel was attacked by activists opposed to minerals mining in the Congo inundated Intel’s Facebook page
How not to use hashtags to market products and services – Don’t use a political and human situation that many people are concerned about, to market products and services
Prepare for social media attacks – Nestlé, maker of Kit Kat, was attacked by Greenpeace for using palm oil from companies that where trashing Indonesian rainforests, threatening the livelihoods of local people and pushing orang-utans towards extinction
Social media has given consumers a whole new voice – What happens when your brand gets its 15 minutes of fame on YouTube, but for the wrong reason? This is exactly what Taco Bell went through
Raise money through social media to fund attack – Amnesty International launched a social media campaign, designed to raise money for a full page ad buy attacking oil company Shell in a UK national newspaper
When social media is used against you – “HP Computers Are Racist”