There are marketing companies whose entire job is to figure out how to boost an organization’s social media profile. I’m guessing none of those marketing firms would recommend deceiving your fan base to do so, but that’s what German soccer club Bayern Munich did.
Early Thursday, the soccer team announced on its Facebook page that it had signed a new offense player. They said they would have a press conference later in the day to announce the signing, and fans had to “like” their group on Facebook to see it.
Low and behold, they had not signed a player. Instead they drove fans to the Facebook page to promote a new app. They eventually apologized to their fans after suffering some backlash. Here’s the translation of the message from Bing:
Sorry dear fans, as we see from your numerous comments, you are very upset about the today’s action.
It was not our intention to disappoint you with the new app. Rather, we wanted to provide you with this action in the Center and thus show how important is each fan for Bayern Munich. In several following video clips on the app, the fan should be part of the team by for example the last name of fans on the Jersey is visible and the fan in the media is represented as a star. These personal videos to prepare you and your friends fun and joy.
I might expect such behavior from an irresponsible reporter, or some sort of shock jock, but not an actual professional team. It’s pretty sad they felt this was the best way to increase their Facebook profile.
H/T Dirty Tackle
