In theory, Trending Topics on Twitter are a Public Relations dream: It’s free publicity for your brand, simple to initiate, and -- providing they catch on -- can appear on every Twitter users newsfeed. Look at the UK’s Trending Topics right now and I guarantee you’ll find something related to One Direction, JLS or Justin Bieber. These tween fan girls may be annoying, but they get results!

McDonalds, however, is a brand without such a headstrong fan base and their recent attempts to promote themselves over Twitter have resulted in what some users are dubbing as a “McFail”.
Using the sponsored hashtag #McDStories (a clickable link that brings up all posts using the same phrasing), McDonalds encouraged Twitter users to share positive tales about the fast-food giant. Almost immediately this approach was met with negativity from individuals and animal rights group PETA.

One disgruntled diner Tweeted: “My father used to bring us to McDonalds as a reward when we were kids. Now he’s horribly obese and has diabetes. Lesson learned #McDStories”

McDonald’s social media director, Rick Wion stated, “Within an hour, we saw that it wasn’t going as planned. It was negative enough that we set about a change of course. With all social media campaigns, we include contingency plans should the conversation not go as planned. The ability to change midstream helped this small blip from becoming something larger.”

The promoted Trending Topic was then discontinued, and McDonalds has commented that of the 72,000 mentions of McDonalds only 2% were negative.

LA Fitness also came under fire from Twitter users this week when news spread the company would not terminate a couple’s gym membership despite the husband having been made redundant and the wife being seven months pregnant.

A report detailing the issue was released by the Guardian and gained momentum over the next few days, resulting in LA Fitness beginning to trend on Twitter. The company then Tweeted they “do not comment on individual cases”. Following the LA Fitness link then lead to posts from Twitter users commenting the brand were “miserable” and “unpleasant”. LA Fitness has since waived the couple’s fees.

These recent events show that brand loyalty cannot always be expected from consumers, particularly when a brand leaves themselves at the mercy of the internet.