Image Credit: Siercon and Coral via CompFight.
Do you think most organizations have been successful in using Twitter to promote their products/services or do you think Twitter could potentially be the demise of an organization if not properly utilized?
I think when organizations use Twitter; it can be a good thing because they are using social media to promote their brands and/or services. If the organization is a very popular and well-known place of establishment, people are not only following them, but also buying their products.
What organization/celebrity has become a victim of a hashtag fail and how did they recover?
McDonald’s used the hashtag, #MeetTheFarmers, as a planned strategy to promote the company’s guarantee of fresh produce and share stories about their farmers. However, a generic form of the hashtag began trending. The hashtag, #McDStories was immediately captured by Tweeters who started sharing horrific stories about the food in McDonalds. This was an extremely bad way to promote McDonald’s even though their intentions were good because people took the meaning of their message the wrong way, which actually hurt McDonald’s instead of helping to promote the company. McDonald’s recovered from this hashtag tragedy by pulling the promoted tweet. The hashtag gained steam and became a trending topic, and the story was picked up by dozens of online news sites, including Forbes.com. McDonalds would have been better sticking with the initial hashtag, which promoted their farmers rather than themselves, and which would not have left them open to so much negativity
Would you have done anything differently to recover or was it a good save?
I think McDonald’s used good strategies by immediately pulling the hashtag tweet. I would have also advised McDonald’s to also offer an apology to those who might have been mixed emotions about the tweet and those who shared horrific stories about the food. I would have advised McDonald’s the purpose they were trying convey to audience and that it is their sincere apology for the tweet hashtag that went horribly wrong.
Melissa Abrams 
I actually saw this as one of many examples for a hashtag failure, it was really cool to read considering the fact that now we are aware of how most feel about the corporation. They did make the right decision of pulling the hashtag, but next time they should stick with their first choice. Nice post!
First of all, I love the picture. It really caught my eye. My question that I have is who started #McStories? Was it just the general public that did? I also agree with McDonald’s just pulling the hashtag immediately. I guess they could have tried to put a positive spin on it but that could’ve gotten messy.
Wow Micky Ds really messed up on this one. I would think that the best way for them to prevent such a catastrophe in the future would be to change the company mindset. McDonalds used to be a quality place until big dollar signs hit the brain. They started using substitute materials to save money and make more profit. Had this not been their culture, I think that this hashtag crisis would not have backfired as it did on them.