11 Hilariously Stupid Social Media Fails You Won't Believe

Social media is a veritable minefield of potential pitfalls and abused etiquette where mistakes are magnified infinitely by the fact that everyone you know and love - and many people you don't - can see exactly what you just typed. Naturally, this isn't always a bad thing, and you can score serious personal brand points for making astute observations about how cute you children/cats/favourite celebrities are, depending on what your circle of friends value most. Brand managers and marketers have very obviously become aware that they too can benefit from a similar dynamic, scoring easy PR points by being smart with their social media accounts, as Tesco Mobile have recently by responding with grace and wit to anyone who insults the brand. But not everyone can be Tesco Mobile, however, and since the explosion of Twitter and Facebook have meant the complete reevaluation of how companies interact with their customers, it seems that not all brands have smartly out-sourced their social media presence to trained professionals (or like, picked up a book of what not to Tweet.) Sometimes it can be as casual and idiotic as a simple, general greeting to a massive group of justifiably irate customers... Proof, if ever it were needed that some people should not be allowed within three feet of their work Twitter account. And far from the only examples of people with no training, and occasionally no brain being let loose on important social media accounts, even if they subsequently claim that the offending posts came from hackers, as Nokia did. It's not always brands of course, as one idiotic, and now presumably lonely man proved when he posted that he would leave his wife and kids for a night with Kelly Brook on an article, only to find that his wife had seen the comments through Facebook... Really smart move. But it really is best when brands mess up...