Ragu’s social media faux pas offers lessons for brands
Ed.’s note: In case you hadn’t heard, Ragu experienced a social media crisis last week when it published this video featuring three mommy bloggers talking about what happens when dads cook. To promote the video, Ragu tweeted a link to the video at various dad bloggers. They weren’t amused. For instance, C.C. Chapman, a dad and marketing blogger, tweeted: “Hey @ragusauce your campaign SUCKS making fun of dads. Never buying your crap sauce again.” It’s safe to assume Ragu didn’t anticipate this reaction.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Ragu and the “crisis” it created by tweeting a video to social dads in a very offensive and spam-like way.
Having read what C.C. Chapman wrote here, here and here, as well as Adam Singer, Arik Hanson and Michael Schechter, I think everyone is missing the biggest lesson of all: Twitter is not a promotion and publicity tool. It’s not a sales tool, either. It is a social tool.
Granted, I’m not sitting in the room with Ragu and its agency while they decide their strategy, but based on experience, I can make an educated guess that they likely used Klout to determine who to target with their tweets.
And what do we all know about Klout? That it is a great first step in determining influencers if you don’t already know who they are. But if you’re in PR and don’t know who your client’s or company’s influencers are, shame on you! Klout is not the way to develop your list and begin to send links to those perceived influencers.
Let me show you what I mean.
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