It’s not a fun week to be in the fast food business. Have a look at three social media disasters which have been served over the past week:  

1. Domino’s add boogers and farts to their topping options



Result: Over 440,000 views. Almost 4,000 predominantly negative comments. Major press including the BBC, Sky, The Sun and News Limited run the story. Employees fired and threatened to be arrested.   

2. McDonald’s boost kids entertainment with temporary trash adventure grounds

Result: Over 26,000 views. Over 100 predominantly negative comments. News Limited run the story. Staff “counselled”.

3. KFC staff wash the wrong chicks in kitchen basin. 

Result: Photos leaked outside of MySpace. Press including The Times, News Limited and Fairfax run the story. Three teens fired. Story revisited in questioning the rights of the worker regarding social network content.

All this in less than a week. Pretty damaging stuff.

Would this have happened if they had a social media strategy in place? Yes.

It would have still occurred. There is little you can do to control individual staff’s actions in such a large organision. However…

Would they have been better prepared to respond if they had a social media strategy in place? Absolutely. 

The learning and the experimenting has been done. The objectives and the communication style have been set. Nothing left to do but to get straight in there, respond and communicate!

Update 16/04/08 9am: Domino’s post a response on YouTube (thanks to @SocialMedia411)

Update 16/04/09 2pm: Domino’s have removed offending video but there are a number of replications which will pop up and down over YouTube – just search ‘dominos’ and ‘disgusting’ and you should get it. 

Related posts:

1. Help Name a Social Media Guy
2. Getting To Fourth Base In Social Media Relationships
3. How You Will Be Judged In Social Media