It looks like brands didn’t make a resolution to stop tweeting dumb stuff in the new year.
Brands usually use holidays as a way to insert themselves into social media conversations. Unfortunately, this usually means really bland and generic tweets or really shameless and nonsensical self-promotional tweets attached to a happy holiday message.
Check out these five examples of New Year-related brand tweets that elicited barely any responses from followers. Brands, maybe just save yourself the boring tweet, and take a break during the holidays.
Applebee’s: Applebee’s went the fill-in-the-blank route. Out of its 65,149 followers, only 13 responded. That’s .02 percent. One young lady resolved to eat more Harry Styles (the boy-band member who is currently dating pop princess Taylor Swift). 
Ad position: web_incontent_pos1
Tide: Tide asked it 62,863 followers this silly question about what things they are going to do differently in 2013 when it comes to laundry, of course. Only five people responded with their resolutions. The bad news: That’s only .008 percent response for Tide. The good news: 99-plus percent of Tide’s followers are sane.
Dove: Dove resorted to the shameless RT request. Of its 72,359 followers, only four have retweeted. That’s .006 percent engagement rate. Congrats on making banner ad response rates look awesome. 
Ad position: web_incontent_pos2
Toyota: Toyota has 113,696 followers, but only two actually responded to this cheesy vanity plate exercise. That’s .002 percent. To put in perspective, a person has a better chance of being hit by lightning.
Walmart: Walmart went with the generic question tactic, and out of its 306,616 followers, only 10 responded to the question. Way to go getting .003 percent response rate. What’s more embarrassing than a brand tweeting boring questions to get interactions is people actually responding with brand-brown-nosing tweets. Check out the two people who responded that shopping at Walmart was their favorite memory of 2012. Jesus.
More in Marketing
In the marketing world, anime is following in the footsteps of gaming
As marketers look to take advantage of anime’s entry into the zeitgeist, they might be wise to observe the parallels between the evolution of anime as a marketing channel and the ways brands have learned to better leverage gaming in recent years.
With the introduction of video ads and e-commerce, Roblox looks to attain platform status
Roblox is expanding into more areas than just ads in 2024. Much like platforms such as Amazon and Facebook have transcended their origins to evolve from their origins as online marketplaces and social media channels, Roblox is in the midst of a transformation into a platform for all elements of users’ virtual lives.
PepsiCo wants to remain a ‘driver of culture’ as it turns to influencers and activations amid rebrand
The soda-maker says it can translate cultural relevance into sales volume.
Ad position: web_bfu