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E A L L K N O W T H A T L E A R N I N G F R O M Y O U R M I S T A K E S IS O N E OF TH E B E S T W A Y S TOA M A S S K N O W L E D G E . B U T B&T B E L I E V E S T H A T L E A R N I N G F R O M T H E M I S T A K E S OF O T H -ERS IS FAR M O R E E N J O Y A B L E . H E R E , B&T U N V E I L S A FEW OF TH E G R E A T E S T G A F F SF R O M B L U N D E R I N G B R A N D S AS T H E Y T R Y TO N E G O T I A T E T H E M A S S E S ON S O C I A L M E -

DIA. S H E A L S O T E L L S Y O U H O W T O D O I T B E T T E R , F A R B E T T E R .

WORDS: SUSI BANKS

OYou can always rely on Qantas for an almightystuff up and the pride of Australia's skies recentlyobliged with some belting social media mayhem.In July 2013 pornographic spam was posted on itsFacebook page overnight and was viewed by anine-year-old boy. The image appeared online forseveral hours but the company's response wasthat its social media sites wei'e only monitoredduring Australian business hours and that sinceit was in the middle of the night, a child wouldn'tnormally be on the internet.

Later, a senior spokesperson told the pooroffended father that the image was "not too bad",which is true... if you don't mind staring at astranger's family heirlooms.

George Photios, a director of local digital mar-keting agency G Square, says airlines seemto cop a lot of flak via social media, probablybecause they are some of the easiest companies to

target. "When people are travelling, stress levelsare already high. The last thing travellers wantis to find out their flight is three hours delayedor that they have to spend the first few days oftheir holiday living out of their carry-on luggage,"he says.

TAKEAWAYTIP:Social media is 24/7. If you're serious abouthaving a social media presence then you musthave people monitoring the channels non-stop. Ifnot then you too can fall victim and end up beingfeatured in the national press, breakfast TV, anda litany of blogs for all the wrong reasons.

OTrying to take advantage of a disaster to producecontent for social media will turn into a disasterfor brands. American Apparel in the US foundthis out when it posted Twitter comments duringHurricane Sandy. The company tweeted: "In caseyou're bored during the storm 20% offeverything for the next 36 hours". In case you're

bored!? Meanwhile Gap attempted to come acrossas caring by tweeting: "All impacted by Sandy,stay safe!" But in the same tweet said: "We'll bedoing lots of Gap.com shopping today. How aboutyou?"

CJ Hudson, co-creator of Stencil, a digitalresearch, communications and media buyingcompany, terms these incidences as "disaster dis-asters" and says possibly the cream of insens-itive Tweets must be from AT&T when it lookedto promote a phone in remembrance of 9/11. Ashot of an AT&T smartphone with a Photoshop-edpicture of the Twin Towers on the screen and theline "Never Forget" was used. One example of areply was: "@AT&T your cool photoshop makesthe memories of watching my parents cry in frontof the television a lot easier to deal with today..."

TAKEAWAYTIP:It's common knowledge that overtly sellingthrough social media is risky. But selling againsta moment of hurt for others is a cardinal sin andone that the social landscape won't let you get

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away with. If you want to show corporate sensit-ivity then fine, hut don't under any circumstancesmix shameless self-promotion with disaster man-agement. You'll only end up managing your veryown catastrophe.

OEveryone knows the perils of drunk tweeting. Butthat didn't stop an alcohol company gettinginvolved with social media. ApproachingEacebook with good intentions, Smirnoff Vodkaran a simple photo contest associated with aproduct launch, where Eacehook fans voted on thehest party picture. The image with the most 'likes'was to be deemed the winner.

Sounds great, right? Keith Crowell, VP of socialmedia for Appen, a glohal linguistics technologyfirm, which has its Australian hase in Sydney,says: "Most marketers would agree this is a fant-astic concept to create consumer engagement,excitement around the hrand, and to identifysuper fans." But the problem arose when some ofthe comments were sexist and some of the imagesdepicted underage drinking. Awkward.

Up until then, advertising laws only applied to abrand's wehsite and other ohvious print or digitalmedia not Eacehook pages. The AustralianAdvertising Standards Bureau (ASB) was quickto correct this oversight and mandated that com-panies' Eacehook pages are in fact an extendedform of advertising, and that the content on theFacehook pages - not only the brand's content,but the user-generated content - should be heldto the same standards of accuracy and rules,including age-appropriate depiction of alcoholconsumption".

TAKEAWAYTIP:Social media channels are extensions of advert-ising. All the content within must now adhere tothe standard advertising guidelines, regardlessof whether it comes from the hrand or thebrand's followers. The hlamc for depicting drunk15-year-olds and spreading virtual bullying sitssquarely with you the marketer. Scary, hut abso-lutely right.

OMany of the gigantic social media stuff-ups wehear about are of the more generic variety, whenthe hrand asks for feedback, posts an openquestion or asks people to ask their own ques-tions. Crowell cites a big social media fail hy fastfood giant McDonald's in 2012.

The company launched a Twitter campaign aimedat seeking positive customer stories about itsproduct with #McDStories.

The concept was too broad and gave open slatherfor Twitter users to start posting comments like"#McDStories: McDialysis? I'm loving it!"Another wrote, "Eound a dirty hand aid in thehottom of a takeout bag.. .#McDStories." Anothertweeted: "One time 1 walked into McDonalds andI could smell Type 2 diabetes floating in the air...#McDStories."

It was only a couple of hours until McDonald'srealised what was happening and switched toanother hashtag. Sensibly, they were strategicenough to keep an eye on the Tweets, and quicklymake an adjustment.

TAKEAWAYTIP:"In social media, two hours can he a really longtime," says Crowell. "It only takes a second toretweet and really gain social momentum, goodor bad. With quicker monitoring, done throughsocial media tools that can detect sentiment, it'spossible they could have acted even faster."

The fast food and takeaway food industry hasoften run into trouble via social media platforms.Mike van der Heijden, managing director ofBrand Vision, gives the example of the TGI Eri-day's restaurant chain in the US. The brand alsohas locations in Australia.

"TGI Eriday's (and its new agency at the time, Puh-licis) launched what it thought to he an ingenioussocial media campaign. The company created afictional character by the name of Woody, whowas an out-of-work actor and claimed to he theultimate TGI Eriday's fan who had made a hetwith TGI Eriday's that when reaching 500,000followers hy 30 September 2009, fans wouldget a free Jack Daniel's Burger or Jack Daniel'sChicken Sandwich," says Mr van der Heijden.

"However, what TGI Eriday's did not anticipatewas the fact that this campaign would go viral,and the Woody page exceeded the 500,000 fangoal within 11 days. Hitting goals that quicklywould normally he a reason to celebrate right?Wrong!" he says.

Besides the fact that it hit its goal too quicklyand had not even started its TV ad campaigns,there were several issues with this campaignthat marketers should learn from.

Eirstly, some people had thought that this Woodypersona was an actual out-of-work actor and hyjoining the 'campaign' were thought to be helpinghim out. This resulted in many angry fans whofelt betrayed when they found out the campaignwas manufactured advertising, and TGI Eri-day's felt the wrath of these angry followers on itsEacehook page.

Secondly, it appears nohody gave any thoughtas to what to do with fans that joined after the500,000 fan milestone had been reached. Thesenew fans just joined because they saw ads onTV, hut realised they were too late for their freehurgers. Again, the angry fans took to TGI Fri-day's' Eacehook wall and shared their stories.Then TGI Eriday's said Woody had arranged forthe first 1,000,000 fans to get free hurgers. Butthe company had not worked out the logistics ofhow this offer would he delivered. Thousands ofpeople again took their frustrations to Eacehook,this time ahout the non-delivery of vouchers, inab-ility to print vouchers and the fact that vouchershad to he used within four days of issue.

Van der Heijden says Puhlicis was then forcedto disallow people from posting to the TGI Eri-day's wall, as things were getting out of hand. Allin all, TGI Eriday's managed to alienate almost1,000,000 people within a month. And if thiswasn't enough of a disaster, on March 9, 2010,Woody and his almost 1,000,000 followers van-ished from Facehook, never to he seen or heardfrom again.

TAKEAWAYTIP:Keep it honest. People will not create a lastingrelationship with your hrand if the representativesof your hrand are not real.

Furthermore, timing is everything. The socialmedia campaign must to be aligned with the TVcampaign (and all other mediums).

Einally, plan past the four-week mark. What areyou going to do with all these followers and howdo you plan to engage them in an ongoing mannerthat continues the hrand commitments into themonths and years to come?

Some food for thought no douht. #

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