Today is #NationalCheeseburgerDay and I had a wonderful post prepared for all of you but as a marketer, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to engage in a little Newsjacking since the hashtag was trending. (You can get a free copy of our National Hashtag Calendar here.) Unfortunately I had to make an example out of McDonald’s but I am hoping they will find this humorous and educational in the long run. (I left some tips for them at the end). I have to say that #NationalCheeseburgerDay will forever be a day where I sit for a moment of silence to mourn the 90’s #BringBackThe90s.

As a daily evening livestreamer with a book launch every month on my #12Books12Months series, I added in an AM episode during my morning walk. Today’s topic was Marketing and how to use National Hashtags to build your audience. I strategically used this topic so I could drive traffic to this blog post and gain traction for my book signing at Barnes & Noble Chino Hills this Saturday. (Bring the kids if you can!) I checked out #NationalCheeseburgerDay on Twitter for some fun facts and to give advice on how to use the hashtag to get additional reach for digital content.

I laughed when the promoted tweet was from McDonald’s, with a poll asking which decade you first fell in love with their cheeseburgers. Cute video clip, great idea… I tried to vote when I noticed the poll was closed and the votes were all zero’s. I chuckled of course because the poll obviously hadn’t worked and had likely never actually opened because with 3.6 Million Twitter Followers, someone was bound to vote on #NationalCheeseburgerDay if given the opportunity. The feed was crazy with laughter about what an #EpicFail it was that “the poll closed before anyone voted.” chiding that they got 0 people who ever fell in love with their burgers, etc. As I looked a little closer at the promoted Tweet (which means they paid for it… money was spent for a poll that couldn’t be voted on) I noticed that whomever had created it, had also skipped a decade. The 90’s were curiously missing. There were some disgruntled people reminding them of this in the feed.

It was 7am Pacific time and I was running late because I usually go walking at 6am so I ran out the door and started my livestream on #Periscope talking about #NationalCheeseburgerDay and building your brand using Newsjacking to gain some exposure. I tagged McDonald’s in the post to give them an opportunity to fix it (or chime in – that is great for reach!) The broadcast lasted 30 minutes and when I returned home I expected that they would have corrected the situation and made some funny joke about it so they could capitalize on their own error and get some additional mileage and media out of it.

To my surprise, they had updated their poll without any acknowledgement of the faux pas (they totally could have gotten huge buzz out of that… big mistake Mickey D’s… #JustSayin) but the worst part was… they still FORGOT the 90’s! I did a little experiment replying to the people who were in an uproar about missing the 90’s with this message: [Tweet “RT if you think @McDonalds should #BringBackThe90s”]

By 10:00am Pacific, they must have seen the hundreds of tweets and they pulled down the poll. At 10:22am Pacific, they posted the video clip, stopped promoting it and gave up on the poll completely. Without ever engaging with their followers, admitting their mistakes, or laughing about it, McDonald’s lost traction and credibility by just shutting it down. Kind of like putting your tail between your legs and wandering off into the corner hoping everyone forgets about the poll on #NationalCheeseburgerDay … and perhaps the 90’s would be resurrected if we stopped talking about it. Since I write books on marketing and social media, I would be remiss if I didn’t come up with an appropriate lesson to share with you.

Marketing Lessons of the Day:

1. If you post a poll or a paid ad, have someone monitoring it so you can engage and fix it if there is a problem.
2. If you make a mistake, laugh at yourself and let people “McRib” you a little 😊
3. Fix it.
4. Engage with your followers. You can take a bad situation and make it good, and take a good situation and make it great. Social Media is SOCIAL… engage with us!
5. If you mess up twice… FIX IT and laugh about it.
6. If you mess up three times… recognize you should have hired us to help you in the first place and make a call. 😊

I hope you took this blog post for the fun and entertaining post it was. The facts are true, but let’s face it, everyone makes mistakes. Instead of letting this go down as an #EpicFail McDonalds give me a call, we will do a livestream together and make the world happy again. We don’t want people to remember this as… the day the 90’s died. (to the tune of American Pie)

My books all remind you to have a Bright Side mentality and in this case, the #BrightSide is that I was able to have a little fun, you readers got a marketing lesson, and McDonald’s got some extra publicity.

This has been a TEACHABLE MOMENT brought to you by… McDonald’s!

Thanks for the memories Mickey D’s and remember #BringBackThe90s.

Until next time…

Dream it, Believe it, Achieve it – Vicki