Social Media Mistakes, they happen.
Social media mistakes happen, and sometimes they happen to the best of us.
Here are a collection of social media mistakes made by some of the largest corporations. The goal of this article is not to make fun, but to demonstrate that even they make mistakes. You will too. It happens some times.
Please Note: obviously the maker of any of these mistakes has done what they can to remove any trace of these mistakes from the internet. Luckily, the internet is archived. Please be patient while the article is redirected to the archived webpage. It is well worth the wait.
American Apparel posts a picture of the exploding space shuttle to celebrate the 4th of July.
American Apparel posted a picture in July of 2014 that they thought was a pretty picture of an explosion. The picture was to celebrate the 4th of July, which typically is celebrated with fireworks. Notice the hashtags #smoke and #clouds.
In their defense, the employee who posted this picture was born after the disaster which happened in 1986. While searching Google to find explosions with fireworks in mind, they came across this picture and had no idea what it actually was.
Kitchen Aid suggests Obama’s grandmother died because she knew how bad his first term would be.
In October of 2014 Kitchen Aid decided to make their own political views known by posting a tweet saying that Obama’s grandmother died because she knew had bad his first term in office was really going to be. Now that is low. Leave a man’s grandma alone.
Later it was discovered that the person who posted this meant to post it to their own personal account. He was later let go from his job.
Delta thought Ghana had giraffes…
Delta meant to show in a post that US was beating Ghana by a score of 2 to 1. They chose to use a picture with the Statue of liberty as the backdrop for the US and a picture of a silhouette of a giraffe as the backdrop for Ghana and scores shown over the pictures.
Great idea but the problem is that there are no giraffes in Ghana.
OK, to be honest, how many of you knew that Ghana in Africa did not have Giraffes? I did not. But many people who know much more about local flora and fauna in countries I will never visit do.
And they let Delta know.
Some people called it insensitive, and some went as far as to call it racist.
So Delta deleted the post and followed it with another which intended to read “We are sorry for our choice of photo in our previous tweet. Best of luck to both teams playing in the World Cup.”
Unfortunately there was a typo that replaced the v in previous with a letter c which in effect referred to the previous post as being precious. As in, we are sorry for the photo in our precious post.
US Airways posted an inappropriate photo. Very Inappropriate.
In April of 2014 it started with a customer complaint about waiting on the tarmac and delays. US Airways responded with a typical “We are sorry” which lead to another response from the irate passenger continuing to express her discontent.
Then US Airways post a tweet which read “We welcome your feedback. If your travel is complete you can detail it here for review and follow up” and posted a picture with it. The picture was of a woman with a toy plane inserted into her lower regions. It remained up for an hour.
US Airways said that their intentions were to flag the photo as inappropriate and it was to be sent to another employee. Somehow it was inserted into the post to the customer as well.
We warn you that it is very distasteful and definitely NOT work place appropriate. Viewing the picture by following the link below may get you a visit from HR.
So you can easily see how these large corporations have made Social Media Mistakes. The point of this article is not to ridicule them or profit from their misfortune. It is to show that they make mistakes and you will too. It happens.
Next time you make Social Media Mistakes, just thank your lucky stars it was not as bad as some of these.