The little colorful candy, Skittles, made a major change to its website recently. The new site essentially became a non-site, just an overlay of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
At first, it worked brilliantly. Hundreds of thousands of people became a “fan” of the candy and starting tweeting about the tangy treat. Unfortunately for Skittles and the parent company Mars, Inc., it was short-lived. Within a week, individuals were off-topic to say the least…posting racial tweets and including profanity in their posts.
In a web exclusive column on PRWeek.com, Huard G. Smith says Skittles took “an arrogant view” of social networking sites. He says Skittles needs to have respect for social media and those that partake.
As an agency, we are involved in social media on behalf of many of our clients. We agree: respect is key.
