By Doug Stephens<\/p>\n

Businesses, it seems, are still fascinated with the Twitter-based hashtag campaign. And why not. These promotions are quick, cheap and easily executed. Just tweet something out, invite consumers to chime in with their own thoughts, ideas or content, #hashtag it and Bob\u2019s your uncle \u2013 you\u2019ve got a load of free media! I\u2019m sure it\u2019s high-fives all around the boardroom when these ideas are hatched. However, on the mean streets of social media, it\u2019s often a very different story. There, these promotions can take a decidedly ugly turn. Take McDonald\u2019s for example, who using the hashtag #McDStories<\/a><\/strong>, launched a Twitter campaign aimed at gathering warm and fuzzy anecdotes about just how much consumers loved their Big Macs and Quarter Pounders. Regrettably, what instead ensued was a litany of shocking, nauseating and (I have to admit) sometimes hilarious tales of foreign objects in food, botulism and employee trash talk. The stream of comments got so out of hand, the company had to take the hashtag down \u2013 the Twitter equivalent of riot control.<\/p>\n

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Or Air Canada, who birthed a similarly hideous brainchild by asking travellers to chime in with their \u201cGreat #AirCanada stories\u201d for a chance to win a pair of round-trip tickets. As it turns out, the first response they got was this:<\/p>\n

<\/a>And most recently, there\u2019s the case of Starbucks U.K. who invited their customers to tweet out holiday wishes using the #SpreadTheCheer<\/a><\/strong> hashtag.\u00a0 What happened however, was anything but cheery for Starbucks.\u00a0 The public jumped on the opportunity to criticize the company for what many Brits see as Starbucks inexcusably low corporate tax remittance rate and adversarial labor policies.\u00a0 To make matters worse, the tweets were being streamed to a giant screen that Starbucks had sponsored at London\u2019s Natural History Museum skating rink!<\/p>\n

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So why do brands seem compelled to do this?\u00a0 Why do they repeatedly subject themselves to this when there\u2019s so much good evidence that it\u2019s a bad idea?\u00a0 It\u2019s a little like standing by the side of a busy highway and saying, \u201cHonk if you love me!\u201d\u00a0 Undoubtedly a percentage of passersby will just tell you to go f*&% yourself instead.\u00a0 It\u2019s just human nature.\u00a0 And if you really do offer reasons for customers to be upset with you, (poor service, labor issues, health standards etc.) more reason not to bait the public\u2019s ire with these sorts of ingratiating campaigns.\u00a0 Clean up your house first \u2013 hold the tweet-a-thon later.<\/p>\n

And if we’re honest, these really aren’t tremendously creative forms of engagement anyway. \u00a0In fact, one could argue it’s downright lazy to expect your followers to do all the heavy lifting of content development and distribution while your brand sits back and reaps the rewards.<\/p>\n

My advice is this; the next time you or anyone in your company comes up with what you think is a great idea for a hashtag campaign\u2026 #thinkagain<\/p>\n

Look for my book The Retail Revival<\/a><\/strong> in stores February 2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Doug Stephens Businesses, it seems, are still fascinated with the Twitter-based hashtag campaign. And why not. These promotions are quick, cheap and easily executed. Just [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[246,247,248,46,27,91],"class_list":["post-1821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-mcdstories","tag-air-canada","tag-hashtag-campaign","tag-marketing","tag-social-media-2","tag-starbucks"],"yoast_head":"\n