Oops…They Did it Again- McDonalds Promotes a Tweet from Friday

I can never stress enough how careful brands need to be in real-time social environment. In particular, it appears that many brands are struggling with this on the social network Twitter, where new ad units called promoted tweets and trends are forcing brands to really keep their focus within the environment 24/7.

Several big brands have been under fire recently for promoted trends, where a brand pays for a certain hashtag to be promoted by them for a day. Depending on the type of hashtag, some brands have seen negative interaction with Twitter users. McDonalds is one such brand, suffering a big PR problem after promoting the hashtag #McDStories.

Well, it looks like they are at it again, only this time with promoted tweets. Early Sunday evening a promoted tweet from McDonalds appeared in my newsfeed, telling me “Fridays should be delicious. Luckily our Extra Value Menu has a McFlurry for a sweet price!” I hate to tell you McDonalds, but Friday was a few days ago.

The mistake is a reminder that brands (and their agencies) need to be involved with social media day in and day out. It’s not something that can only be ran 9-5 on weekdays. It’s a dynamic world, and if you want to be a part of it (especially with things such as promoted tweets and trends), you need to always be on top of your game. The Friday promoted tweet should have been deactivated in McDonald’s Twitter advertising interface, and unfortunately, it wasn’t.

– Bryan Nagy