The McDonald’s Fiasco

A short piece of news last week, one with a lasting effect on the web, was an attempted  social media campaign by McDonald’s, which has now been dubbed the #McFail. McDonald’s took advantage of the social network Twitter’s promoted tweet program, where companies can pay to have branded blurbs running amongst organic content.

Seems like an easy thing for marketers to adopt. However, McDonald’s program didn’t exactly go as planned. when their hashtag, #McDStories, were used against them. The fast-food conglomerate had intended to tell happy, wholesome stories about how their food is made, but Twitter users had other ideas in mind, posting comments about heart attacks and well, the benefits of McDonald’s while under the influence. For example, a tweet from @PETA encouraged McDonald’s to come back with:

That posting is absolutely FALSE McNuggets are NOT made from mechanically separated chicken. Only USDA inspected white meat.

Whoops. McDonald’s original tweet, “When u make something w/pride, people can taste it,” can still be seen at the top of the hashtag results page, however, that position is a benefit of being a “Top Tweet,” which may not be a title McDonald’s necessarily wants anymore. Top Tweets become so based on an algorithm created by Twitter based on extremely high engagement when people do a search for a term, in this case #McDStories, most likely to see the humorous non-sponsored Tweets circulating.

I guess next time, if you’re a company which is a “lightening rod in the first place,” it might be best to just make a commercial next time.