Yesterdays post talked about the ins-and-outs of maintaining a Facebook account to represent your business. Today we’re going to expand on those points with this follow up post of an example of a failed campaign, that is ‘one that draws more bad press than good press’.

Texas Pete began its Facebook Fan campaign alluding to an offer that if they reached 100,000 Facebook Fans by 11/15/2009 their Fans would get a coupon for a FREE bottle of Texas Pete Hot Sauce. Recently, Texas Pete posted on their Texas Pete Fan Page that the offer was for a BOGO (Buy One Get One) coupon, NOT a free bottle.

Of course, Texas Pete Fans soon began stating their displeasure with the alleged bait-and-switch and made comments that were not flattering or positive. This one from Melanie FeehanWow, “pretty sneaky. Will have to switch brands. Maybe you should rename to Sneaky Pete”. and this from Chrystal Hawthorne “Not that BOGO free isn’t great, but this did say free bottle. Kind of misleading!”

What this says is that social marketing can be a powerful and beneficial move for your business, but like any part of your business it must be well thought out, and each campaign must be thoroughly tested before unveiling it to the public.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 12:31 pm and is filed under Just Blogging, Social Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.