What AARP Learned From #ObamaIsNotSatan

Advice for Twitter marketers on avoiding real-time hell

On Monday, the AARP's Promoted Tweet buy for "Obama" turned awry when #ObamaIsNotSatan was a national trend on Twitter for several hours. The org was running ads (shown below) on the micro-blogging site to rally sentiment around protecting Social Security benefits that are being threatened by budget cuts in the nation's capital.

For the uninitiated, Twitter's ads platform allows brands to bid on keywords in a system that's akin to Google AdWords. Terms such as "Obama" can be purchased with an exact-match or a phrase-match feature.

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