Unbelievable Social-Media Blunders

Insensitivity to Tragedy

In July 2012, after mass movie-theatre shooting in Aurora, Colorado, Celeb Boutique jumped at the opportunity to promote one of its clothing items by the same name.

Lesson: Don’t use a national traged

Disgruntled Employee

Handing over the keys to your social-media platform means putting the integrity of the brand in that employee’s hands. When Chrysler tweeted the above, it was quickly deleted and the company claimed their account was hacke

Hashtag Attention-Grab

Although Entenmann’s claims it wasn’t aware that it was latching onto the Casey Anthony #notguilty hashtag, an astute Tweeter would have known what the entire continent was talking about in that moment.

Political Exploitation

In a blatant move of exploitation, Kenneth Cole nonchalantly joked that the riots occurring in Cairo were just people clamouring for the brand’s latest clothing line.

The lesson: Don’t try to capitaliz

Shameless Self-Promotion

Even good intentions can be sullied when brands put themselves first. What seemed like a sensitive tweet from K-Mart in support of the people affected by Newtown, Connecticut’s horrific school shooting was hashtagged w

Natural Disaster Tweet

These are just two of the notable Hurricane Sandy tweets that left a bad taste in tweeters’ mouths. Both President’s Choice and The Gap took the natural disaster as an opportunity to hawk their goods.

Inappropriate Joke

The Globe and Mail‘s “Caption Person,” who writes tongue-in-cheek commentary on weekly celebrity photos for the newspaper’s website, also has its own Twitter account. While this offensive tweet was quickly r

Multiple-Account Tweet

Maybe the most harmless of the blunders, but still reputation-damaging, the accidental-account tweet is an unfortunate and extremely avoidable error. American Cross tweeted afterward saying, jokingly, “We’ve deleted th