Biggest Moments In Social Media Marketing — Wins and Fails

As the worldwide social media audience continues to grow, the impact of brands’ wins and fails are amplified that much more. If you create a big win, your victory is awesome. But if you fail, your mistake gets played out on the biggest virtual public stage.

We can learn a lot from the companies that roll out successful campaigns that are well received. But how about the fails? It seems to me that the erroneous-tweet type of fails are downright human error and lack of good judgment. But the fails that are well-intentioned campaigns that end up bombing could be a lack of deep understanding of audience demographic and deep understanding of (extended) audience relationship with the brand. Of course, even if a campaign goes over well with the exact target demographic, the naysayers can easily jump all over a brand’s campaign with their $0.02 and create a viral negative meme.

When a brand screws up with their social media communication, does it affect your relationship with that brand? Do you go out your way to avoid buying that brand’s products? I know I certainly have. Every employee of a company is a brand advocate; each person is representing what the brand is about. For example, one time I came across some very snarky tweeting by a fairly senior member of staff at one particular company and it really turned me off the entire company. Hm. What’s the solution? I say investing in better company-wide training and cultivating the most awesome company culture.  That’s a whole other subject. 😉

Meantime, take a look at this fun infographic for some fascinating facts and stats on examples of what worked well in social media and what didn’t. Click the image to view the infographic full size.

Source: Biggest Moments in Social Media 2012

Did you learn data here that is helpful for your own marketing? What else would you add? Leave a comment below!

Mari Smith

Often referred to as “the Queen of Facebook,” Mari Smith is widely known as the Premier Facebook Marketing Expert and a top Social Media Thought Leader. Forbes describes Mari as, “… the preeminent Facebook expert. Even Facebook asks for her help.” IBM named Mari as one of seven women that are shaping digital marketing. Mari is an in-demand keynote speaker, corporate social media strategist, dynamic live webcast host, and popular brand ambassador. She is coauthor of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day, and author of The New Relationship Marketing.

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