Think getting your post to go viral is the ultimate goal? Think again. 

This is a perfect example of what NOT to do when planning an online giveaway.

Can we afford to do this? Is it worthwhile? Will we make a loss temporarily by giving items away for free? These are all the questions you should think about prior to running a giveaway.

Sunny Co. Clothing wanted to promote their Baywatch swimsuit named Pamela on Instagram. With a hefty price tag of $65, Pamela down’t come cheap. Being a new brand, a giveaway seemed like the perfect idea. Their offer was as follows; whoever reposted the image on their story and tagged Sunny Co. would receive a free Pammie swimsuit. Damn, that’s a good offer. No draw to enter, just a guaranteed win if you repost. However, what they didn’t expect was for their post to go viral, meaning they ended up having to give away tens of thousands of swimsuits, which ultimately didn’t end up happening. Cue a long line of angry Instagrammers who want the swimsuits they were promised. Sunny Co. quickly changed the giveaway rules to say they were limiting the amount of giveaways after the unexpected surge in entries.

The notorious Pamela swimsuit, image source 

Sunny D. Where the ‘D’ stands for, don’t do what we did.

Mental illnesses are no joke. They plague millions of us worldwide, and whilst mental health awareness is big on social media right now in terms of spreading awareness and removing stigma, it’s rare you see anyone trying to make jokes about the situation, especially big brands with thousands of followers. The brand Sunny D tried to make a joke about mental illness that didn’t quite land with their audience. It came across as though Sunny D were playing the part of a depressed individual and tweeting about how down they were feeling… consecutively (yes there wasn’t just one post). See the below, although we must issue a major cringe warning.

As you’d probably expect, the backlash was pretty harsh.

Image Source – Twitter, Sunny D 

Want a celeb to tweet you back? Post false news about them. Works every time.

This next social media fail is a warning that you should always double check your facts before tweeting false news…especially if it’s about a celebrity that has the power to call you out in front of millions of people. A technology company (who should be clued up on tech news) tweeted that Elon Musk was bringing out a smartwatch last week. Elon Musk shut them down instantly, confirming this was false and even ripped into smartwatches saying they are ‘yesterday’s technology’…basically calling out the company in front of his 38 million followers. Although, if it was a response from a celebrity this company was after, they achieved their goal. All PR is good PR, right?

Image Source

Don’t diss Christmas. Especially not in front of 300,000 people.

This is a clear lesson in ‘know your audience’. UPS, a company that profits hugely during the festive period may have misjudged their audience when they decided to post their festive tweets. Instead of embracing the Christmas spirit, UPS attempted to make a Scrooge inspired joke. Presumably to draw attention to their brand. Their joke implied that they were happy to shred any children’s letters to Santa that they were in charge of delivering. Unfortunately the joke fell flat with parents of the Twitter community rallying together saying they didn’t find their joking attempt funny. To be honest, we think this backlash was a bit harsh. Whilst it probably wasn’t the best move from UPS, who deliver millions of letters a year. This was a fairly obvious joke.  

Image Source – Twitter UPS

Communication faux pas? Don’t blame the cat.

Whilst this isn’t a social media fail as such, as the messages were sent via Tinder, we’re still counting this one! If you’ve been a victim of ‘ghosting’ in the past, then you will be aware that it can hurt your feelings. However we all know that if someone is ghosting you, it 100% means they aren’t interested anymore (harsh but true). One Tinder user got tired of their love interest ghosting them. So, decided to take matters into their own hands by continuously sending messages in the hope of prompting a response, their tactic was to then claim that they didn’t send them at all (cringe). 

Sending messages to the ghoster and then claiming that the cat stepped on the phone and wrote perfect english with its paws is pretty spectacular. That’s one smart cat.