There’s no denying that social media has become one of the most useful business tools around but despite the wonders it can work, one tiny mistake is then out there on the Web for all the world to see. Here are some high-profile examples that you may have heard about, and some that were covered up pretty darn swiftly.
Enjoy our top 5 social media blunders:
1 . Ed Balls Day.
To get the ball rolling (pardon the pun), we begin with one of the strangest incidents of the 21st century. 28th April has never been the same since ex-shadow chancellor Ed Balls bizarrely and without explanation tweeted his own name.
Mr. Balls was apparently searching for himself on Twitter and accidentally typed into the wrong field, making the whole thing at least 150% more cringeworthy. Never mind Ed, at least you didn’t embarrass yourself on Strictly Come Dancing.
2. When trump was trumped…
Number two may come as a bit of a shock to you. Back in 2014, President Trump got tricked into retweeting a picture of notorious British serial killers: Fred and Rose West. We’re terribly sorry to tarnish his glowing reputation but Donald is perhaps not the slick, shrewd leader the media would have us believe. Shock horror!
Learning of his mistake, Trump removed the incriminating retweet, replacing it with: “Some jerk fraudulently tweeted that his parents said I was a big inspiration to them + pls RT—out of kindness I retweeted. Maybe I’ll sue.”
Unfortunately for Donald, his blunder had received already 5,000 shares. Who would have suspected foul play from a user called ‘feckhead’…
3. Interesting Customer Care strategy From U.S Airways.
Moving away from public figures, this is a blunder from US Airways who inexplicably replied to a customer complaint with a very naughty picture of a woman doing something very naughty. To make matters worse, the tweet remained online for almost an hour!
That’s one way to deal with disgruntled customers – just show them pornography and hope it solves their service woes.
For obvious reasons, we don’t have an example picture of this blunder, so instead, please enjoy this collage of dogs who are stuck but pretending everything is fine.
4. Saddle up! This one’s a good’un.
Everybody remembers the horsemeat scandal of 2013. The incident took Europe by storm when products advertised as containing beef were in fact found to contain horsemeat – almost 100% of the stuff in some cases. UK supermarket giant Tesco was caught up in the scandal when the Food Safety Authority (FSA) found traces of horse DNA in a batch of frozen hamburgers.
Whilst the store took immediate action to remove and recall this product, unfortunately, the social media team weren’t quite as on the ball:
Whoops.
5. Another interesting Customer Care strategy.
And finally, monumental but hilarious blunder from British Airways in October 2016. We’ll let the picture do the talking here. It’s certainly an interesting marketing technique to actively promote deals from your biggest competitors…
We hope you enjoyed these blunders as much as we did. Have we missed off your favourite? Feel free to send in social media blunders or perhaps an accidental post that you yourself were involved in.
Proceed with caution on your social media platforms! As effective as they are, one mishap and you might be featured and exposed in a blog post a few years from now. Who knows…
