Blog with Rob: Epic Fail: Another Social Media Photo Campaign Goes Viral… And Not In A Good Way

The NYPD is making headlines, but not for reasons that you’d think. A few weeks ago, the NYPD joined scores of other organizations that tried to use social media to generate some goodwill, only to find that it’s almost impossible to control the reaction on social media.

The NYPD tweeted asking users to post photos of them posing with police officers with the hashtag “myNYPD”. What followed were not the heartwarming photos they were looking for. Instead, an overwhelming amount of users took to Twitter to post photo’s appearing to display police brutality, arrests and other not-so-happy images.

The NYPD is not alone; McDonald’s, JPMorgan and several other large organizations have experienced overwhelming backlash to social media campaigns in the last few months.  The lesson here? There may be no magic formula to controlling your online conversation in order to generate the desired results. So when it comes to social media, hope for the best case scenario but plan for the worst. And be careful what you wish for.