The Biggest Fails on Instagram
Chances are you will spend a lot of time researching Instagram success stories. After all, you have to figure out how successful people are so that you can imitate their actions and enjoy the same success. While reading about successful strategies is important, you should also learn about Instagram failures. This will help you know what to avoid when using Instagram. Check out some of Instagram’s biggest fails and learn how to avoid them.
Warburtons makes a disastrous hashtag mistake
Hashtags are a great tool to help you connect with people on Instagram. However, you should be careful when choosing hashtags. Warburtons bakery learned this the hard way. The company teamed up with McFly’s Tom Fletcher for a ticket raffle. To enter, Instagram users had to upload a photo of their most creative crumpets using the #CrumpetCreations hashtag. There was only one problem with this. A fursuit maker that creates costumes for the furry community has already used the hashtag.
The hashtag takeover campaign caused a lot of confusion among the bakery’s followers and the furry community. Some considered it a funny mistake, while others accused Warburton of damaging the community.
Whether or not this hurt the community remains a matter of debate. However, researching your hashtags before using them shouldn’t be controversial. Make sure you don’t hack the hashtag before adding it to your campaign. Otherwise, your campaign may attract attention for the completely wrong reasons.
Sunny Co Clothing Ad Campaign Goes Too Viral
A viral Instagram post is one of the most sought after achievements in the marketing world. You probably hope that every post you post will end up on Instagram. Sunny Co Clothing probably had the same hope when it ran a promotion for the Pamela swimsuit. The swimsuit usually sells for $64.99, but the company said it will give it away for free to anyone who enters the competition. People just had to repost the photo, tag the company, and pay for shipping and handling. The company then sent them a bathing suit for free.
Sunny Co Clothing set the competition to run for 24 hours, but amended the rules a few hours later, stating that it could end at any time. After thousands of orders, he finally completed the competition. At that point, more orders were received than could be completed within a reasonable time frame. The company also accidentally charged some people full price instead of only billing them for shipping and handling.
There is a valuable lesson to be learned from this marketing nightmare. Always think about how much you can give away by hosting a contest. Set rules to not exceed this amount and then stick to it.
Ruffles tries to make a joke and fails
Some brands are great at making jokes online. For example, Wendy’s marketing team has a knack for creating viral tweets. Other brands run into trouble when they try to make their audiences laugh. While the Ruffles have generated giggles from time to time, they made a huge mistake when they tried to make fun of vegans on Instagram.
The potato chip brand made a fake advertisement for «Tofu-Urkey» Ruffles that included the words «100% no turkey, no time limit». The caption read, «There’s a reason why tofu turkeys are never forgiven.»
Numerous vegan Instagram users took offense at the joke and even launched a hashtag campaign to boycott Ruffles. Ruffles quickly took down the ad and issued an apology.
The key takeaway here is that humor can be effective, but it can also backfire on you. Know your audience well before trying to make a joke. While some missed jokes cause eye rolls, others can harm your brand and lead to loss of followers.
Avoid These Instagram Failures
You will have trouble getting likes and engaging on Instagram if you repeat these Instagram mistakes. Create a tough campaign that avoids these mistakes to succeed on Instagram.
