#FAIL: The 50 Greatest Social Media Screw-Ups and How to Avoid Being the Next One

by Bernhard Warner, matthew yeomans

"#FAIL" chronicles [a] kind of digital pioneer, those brands that have made iconic, early stumbles in social media that have resulted in consequences well beyond a loss of a few “friends” or “followers.” From a lock-picking geek’s take-down of Kryptonite in 2004 to Carnival Corp’s tin-eared response to the Costa Concordia tragedy in January, 2012, the blunders chronicled here cost companies millions, bruised well-honed corporate reputations and sunk careers. There are plenty of mistakes to learn from here – or at least chuckle at in disbelief.

123 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 28, 2012

Reviews

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good for the convenient list of social media fuckups. I actually find myself often needing some good examples of these, and i always use the same ones (jet Blue, amazon fail, etc), so that is good.

but a) this isn't really a "book." I mean, you can read it in an hour and it is short short short. and b) the "by the numbers" section is just silly. They're never super great stats or anything interesting, they are just... some facts that happen to involve... numbers. and c) I'd love to see more quotes, references, etc. Sometimes they mention a stock price impact, but it's always anecdotal or vague. I'd love to see an "academia" version of this.

Still, if you're a marketer debating the wisdom of engaging in social media, this is a decent 101 of why you need to be there.

[Dane Cobain · Rating 4 out of 5]

#Fail claims to list “the 50 greatest social media screw-ups” and promises to teach you how to avoid being the next one, and I must admit that it doesn’t disappoint – in fact, it’s probably aged pretty well, because when I first bought this, I was impressed with how up-to-date the case studies were. It was also impressively well-researched and well-written, and I ended up interviewing the two authors for my old job, although the blog has since been taken down.

It’s pretty good, and definitely worth reading if you work in social media marketing, or if you just like to read about brands that make prominent mistakes.