How to fix all those stupid brand tweets

This 9/11, many, many brands, once again, tweeted messages about 9/11 instead of just doing the smart thing and shutting the hell up. Dunkin’ Donuts did it, because, I guess, “holey” hell, it’s been 13 years! And because apparently we needed some reminder that kids were also shitting 13 years ago yesterday, Huggies tweeted about 9/11, too. Even Fleshlight interrupted its fapping updates and smoothly transitioned from #AssWednesday to a stirring photo of flags in the mist.

Twitter is a personal platform. And brands are not people. This doesn’t mean that brands can’t exploit social media to try to sell their products or enhance their images. But it does mean that pizzas and diapers and SUVs and Cinnabons should stop being so desperate to get you to “like” them as a “friend”, and they definitely shouldn’t be telling you that they love you, because they sure as shit stinks don’t.

Social media managers get their grubby hands all over the news and up in your feed because they’re trying to improve “engagement” – the more likes and shares or retweets and faves, they are told, the better the free (free!) advertising – because that’s what every update is: free advertising. And guess what? Every single one of the brand-tweeters who Like-grubs for a living is doing social media 100% wrong.

The good news is all those “insensitive” social-media posts that are ostensibly but not at all about the news actually do little or no harm to a company. You reach 9/12, and everybody has already forgotten that Applebee’s will never forget. But all those mildly (emphasis on the “mildly”) witty updates that get retweeted 5,000 times by sheeple are doing nothing measurably good for the brand, either. Do they lead to increased sales? No. Are they so memorable that they stick in a consumer’s mind and improve brand image, long-term? No. They’re gone and forgotten within hours. Completely pointless and useless. Social media “impressions” might help beef up thin PowerPoint presentations, but the clever, glomming Event Tweet does fuck-all for your bottom line.

Through my extensive internet travels, I’ve discovered that most of these “social media managers” are recent college grads and sometimes even interns. Why would the manager of a billion-dollar company’s advertising and marketing budget give so much power to inexperienced kids? Because they know code and Photoshop? Because they’re good at hashtags? Are you kidding me?

Now, imagine if your social media hire was instead a trained, talented advertising copywriter or art director – or both, as a team that created brilliant little ads every day that sold the hell out of a deal or a product benefit or, you know, just memorably presented your brand to the world?

Some brands, like Oreo at the Super Bowl, try to do this. But they’re rare and they don’t do a consistently good job. I’ve found one (1) brand doing a great job on social media: Newcastle Ale. Like with a recent social “event” where the brand asked for fan photos via a hashtag, then turned them into ads that were hilarious – and hilariously terrible – on purpose:

That probably costs next to nothing, which is critical when you’re a challenger brand like Newcastle, and it tied in perfectly with their “No Bollocks” tagline. Your social media intern would have never come with an idea like that. Never.

There are “experts” are all over the web and in the digital ad world who insist that “traditional advertising is dying”. They say this because 1) it serves their business model, and 2) they are uncreative people who don’t know their ads from a hole in the ground. Sure, “traditional” advertising isn’t as good as it used to be, simply because creatives aren’t as good as Don Draper used to be and never was. But I have high hopes for Generation Z. And traditional advertising still makes up the bulk of marketing spending. Social media and “native” ad spending aren’t even close, and that ain’t changing any time soon.

But! Social mediums are great platforms for brands. They just need to follow the direction of Tom McElligott, hall-of fame copywriter and founding creative partner of the great Minneapolis ad agency Fallon McElligott Rice, who once said in the 1980s, you know, in the prehistoric days before social media:

I would much rather overestimate than underestimate the intelligence of the consumer.

Now, chief marketing officers, would you please walk over to your goofball millennial with the keys to your brand and tell him or her to stop treating me like a complete moron? Thanks.