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McDonald’s Twitter promotion backfires

By mike, Jan 25 in blog with 0 comments

A McDonald’s Twitter promotion backfired after customers hijacked the hash-tag #McDStories, using it to share horror stories instead.

The fast food giant launched the 24-hour promotional campaign last week to promote its use of fresh produce, inserting paid-for tweets into the streams of Twitter users.

But things went wrong after the corporation changed its promotional hash-tag from #MeetTheFarmers to #McDStories.

Twitter users started using the hash-tag to accuse McDonald’s of making customers projectile vomit and serving a burger containing a fingernail.

"Fingernail in my BigMac once #McDStories, McDonald’s Twitter Hashtag Promtion, Goes Horrible Wrong," said user @capnmarrrk.

"Ordered a McDouble, something in the damn thing chipped my molar. #McDStories," @PuppyPuncher said.

"Hospitalized for food poisoning after eating McDonalds in 1989. Never ate there again and became a Vegetarian. Should have sued #MCDStories," @Alice_2112 said.

"Watching a classmate projectile vomit his food all over the restaurant during a 6th grade trip #McDStories," @jfsmith23 said.

McDonald’s social media director Rick Wion told paidcontent.org that within an hour they saw the promotion wasn’t going as planned and "set about a change of course".

He said the #meetthefarmers hashtag received mostly positive tweets.

Story source: www.ninemsn.com.au

About the author

Mike Andrew has been working with the Internet and small business for over 12 years. Mike has been a keynote speaker at conventions and seminars and conducted social media training sessions all over the world. Mike has an extensive media background having worked in electronic media for over 30 years. Mike specialises in social media and Internet marketing strategy, SEO techniques and search engine marketing campaigns. His articles appear on numerous blogs around the web as well as national magazines.