Social Media FAILS of the Week

Failure is a state of mind, and in my mind, these are the nonperformances of the week. Starting with a botched CISCO campaign to emulate Old Spice, I take a look at rappers, giant social networking corporations, Google and more to give you my social media FAILs of the week. CISCO - 'Ted From Accounting' The bigger they are the harder they fall. It's the inescapable truth that keeps so many corporate titans out of the social media realm. A seemingly simple failure can have disastrous results, even permanently damaging the brand. Thankfully for Cisco, their recent social media foray, didn't do much - literally. And while they only hurt their Web "street cred," they certainly won't be convincing any other Fortune 500 sideline-watchers to engage. The Cisco campaign centered around 'Ted From Accounting,' a parody of Old Spice's "The Man Your Man Can Smell Like." You can read more on where Cisco went wrong. But the most obvious reason is that the video was simply not funny - nor did it provide the 'eye candy' (Isaiah Mustaf) that has helped make the Old Spice campaign what it is today. The Cisco folks say they are content that they generated a few thousand eye balls in their B2B world - but there is certainly room here to think bigger, plan harder and execute better. KANYE WEST Perhaps we know the real reason Kanye steered clear of Twitter after his VMA Swiftgate debacle. He can't spell... "Up early in the morning taking meetings in Silicone Valley." OK, so spelling errors happen to everyone. But in my world, it takes more than standing on a conference room table rapping at Facebook employees to win back the hearts of middle America. After accumulating almost 300,000 followers in mere hours, it's hard to chalk this up as a fail, but this is my space, so I'm running with it. I don't care that Kanye "ordered the salmon medium instead of medium well." That sounds like a tweet from my granpappy! But there's more... He's wise! "My past arrogance has caused the failure of my past businesses .... be humble in your decision making" He's snarky! "banks take 10 percent and kill you" He's rich! "I got my projector in today for the living room then image is about 13 feet wide 10,000 lumins watching Dark Knight in the day" Frankly, I just think he's an egomaniac! YOUTUBE Longer isn't necessarily better... YouTube has increased the max upload time of videos to 15 minutes - that's 900 seconds to bore the hell out of the world! In honor of the extension, YouTube has launched a contest, "15 Minutes of Fame." Film a 15-minute video, tag it "yt15minutes," and upload it by Wednesday, August 4, and you can end up on the homepage. Indie film directors and Family Guy clip watchers are celebrating in the streets, but I recognize the change as a blow to bite-size content - which is truly the backbone of the Internet. I hope I'm proven wrong, but I'm willing to bet the YouTube contest will validate my belief. Let's see how users fill their 15 minutes. The only thing I'd wanna watch for that long is my Shiba Inu attempting to attack my Swiffer. IVY BEAN Isn't death the ultimate failure? Sure it's not Ivy Bean's fault that she expired, but when the oldest user of anything dies, it is not press-worth. It might sound harsh, but the second that person passes away, a new person becomes the oldest user. And guess what...they'll be dead soon too. Ivy Bean was 104 years old and quite active on Twitter. I'm sure she saw some awesome things in her life. I wonder how the Technological Age compared to the Roaring 20s? But was it really necessary for Ivy's family to provide updates of her deteriorating condition. When it comes to a window into grief and death, I'm shutting the door. FACEBOOK CENSORSHIP Yes Facebook is a business. And yes, they do not have to guarantee freedom of speech. But when full-on search terms can be banned, how can the social network expect people to trust them enough to use the site for conversations? A lawsuit with Power.com (who allegedly engages in abusive and spammy content) has left Facebook banning users from talking about Power.com. Currently, any status update including "Power.com" will yield a "Message Failed" error. Censorship = fail.

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Social Media FAILS of the Week

Andrew G.R.

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Andrew G.R.