Social Media: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Millions take part in social media every day, tweeting on Twitter, keeping up with friends and family on Facebook and clicking on “like” buttons across the net. People make social media go round, but as with everything, there are the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good

The Feel Your Boobies breast cancer non-profit campaign to support and raise money for breast cancer awareness was a huge success. Founded in 2004, the Feel Your Boobies Foundation of Middletown, PA used social media to get their message out and as a result received over 243,189 “likes”. What a tremendous success for this non-profit organization with the simple objective of getting women under forty to “feel their boobies” to look for breast lumps or changes when they occur.

On a local level, the Feel Your Boobies recently won the Public Service Innovation award at the 2011 Pennsylvania Technology Awards held last Friday. Congratulations Feel Your Boobies Foundation for an innovative and successful Social Media campaign with a great cause!

The Bad

It’s already quite a snafu to drop an F- bomb in the workplace, but to drop the F-bomb on the official Twitter account of Chrysler?

The unidentified tweeter posted the following on the official Twitter account for Chrysler Group LLC: “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f—ing drive.”

Okay, so the Chrysler Group did say the offensive statement was issued by an employee of New Media Strategies, its social media agency of record, and issued an apology that same day. It is said the employee has since been terminated.

The Ugly

And the winner of this award goes to … Gilbert Gottfried! Come on, I think you knew this. Shortly after the earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, Gilbert Gottfried, the spokesperson and voice for the Aflac duck, posted some seriously horrific comments he calls jokes on his personal Twitter account. Due to the nature of those comments, we surely cannot post them here. This little stunt not only cost him his job at Aflac Inc., but this poor little duck now has no voice.

A new social media campaign has since been launched to help aid in the effort of finding this duck his new voice, along with requirements such as being caring, helpful and charming, while the love of peanut butter is optional.

This has obviously left a void in commercial land, so if you feel you can behave yourself and keep from tweeting ugly comments, be sure to waddle on over to http://www.quackaflac.com/ and post your 30 second audio or video doing the signature Aflac Squawk. But beware, we will be watching you!