List of Social Media Success Stories and Examples

Biggest Successes and Failures in Social Media

As social media gains prominence, an expanded worldwide audience is there to witness some of the biggest impacts and failures made on this global, public stage. Here are some recent results seen in social media.

The demographic of social media users:
92% of users are 18-29 years old.
73% of users are 30-49 years old.
57% of users are 50-64 years old.
38% of users are 65+ years old.

Memorable Successes

Here is a look at some of the more notable and viral responses received by social media users with these companies.

Dollar Shave Club
This new company used an offbeat approach via YouTube in selling their razor blades from an ad with a bear costume using the phrase, “Our Blades are f***ing great.” This campaign received more than 7.7 million views.

Nike
Nike’s campaign honored everyday athletes, specifically targeted towards London billboards during the 2012 Olympics. Positive feedback out did that of the official sponsor Adidas. Their campaign received more than 16,000 tweets and a 77% boost in Facebook interaction during the Olympics.

Sephora
Engaging customers through their 15 days of Beauty promotion on Facebook brought them a 2 million download mobile app response. They used iPads and iPod Touches in retail stores to drive mobile traffic.

Honda
Honda used social media methods to offer $500 to the most active Pinners on Pinterest to take a 24 hour break referred to as “Pintermission” so that they could promote the new CRV. Winners were able to create a board about the activities they engaged in during their day off. This campaign allowed Honda to reach more than 5.5 million followers of the high powered users plus thousands of additional followers.

Bully Movie
To promote a movie with regards to bullying and how families are impacted, The Weinstein Co. launched a social media campaign that brought celebrities onboard. This brought their Twitter to more than 31,000 followers with an awareness to help change the Motion Picture Association of America’s original rating of the film from R to PG-13.

Memorable Failures

These failures not only brought a large amount of attention to their actions, but also caused additional reactions through social media retweets, reposts, and media backlash. Here are some of the most memorable failures with social media.

McDonalds
McDonald’s desired to generate a viral spread of anecdotes about their company through promoting tweets with the hastag #McDStories. Instead, they were met with viral tweets with negative publicity about fingernails found in Big Macs, baby chickens being scalded alive for McNuggets, and consumers hospitalized for food poisoning. Because of this negative result, the campaign was pulled within two hours.

Chick-Fil-A
Having been accused of donating to anti-gay charities, passions became enflamed from both sides of the tracks. With their Facebook page being targeted as a means of voicing public opinions, a profile purported to belonging to a teenage girl defended the company and was revealed as being a hoax account. While the company denied any involvement in the fake profile and scam, Chick-Fil-A suffered some negative reactions.

American Apparel
Offering a promotion to Sandy victims during the storm, American Apparel sent an email saying “in case you’re bored during the storm, 20% off everything for the next 36 hours.” Those 36 hours proved to be one of the most devastating storms that hit the East Coast and killing 130 people, leaving more than 4 million without power and causing billions in property damage. As a result the company apologized for any insensitivity as they were trying to keep the machine going for its employees and stakeholders.

Kitchen Aid
During the second presidential debate when Obama was speaking of his grandmother and health care reform, an official of the company tweeted on Kitchen Aid’s official page, “Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! She died 3 days b4 he became president. #nbcpolitics.” The company immediately deleted the offending tweet and apologized as the individual thought he was posting on his individual account. He was no longer allowed to tweet in the future for Kitchen Aid.

Celeb Boutique
Another instance of a tweet going bad as this company dispatched a tweet saying, “#Aurora is trending, clearing about our Kim K inspired #Aurora dress.” In reality the trend was in reference to the mass shooting the same day in Aurora, Colorado. As a result, the company deleted the offending tweet and apologized.

Facebook IPO Failure

Facebook faced its own failure as the IPO trading sets a record IPO volume just to follow with Nasdaq embarrassment over Facebook trading issues. As a result, Facebook dropped below $38 in IPO price with investors suing Nasdaq. Facebook is now among the worst big U.S. IPO starts in 5 years. The losses are speculated to rise to $35 million with underwriters making $100 million on the IPO. Their stock decreased by 30% and costing Nasdaq over $40 million in payouts with losses.

Twitter Fails During the Olympics

Talk was all about the #NBCFail. The journalist that wrote it tweeted the NBC executive email address where backlash was given towards reporter Guy Adams when Twitter locked his account out. As a result, Twitter apologized for suspending Guy Adams as NBC withdrawals their complaint.