Okay, folks, this is hilarious! I pulled this from the qwghlm.co.uk Blog (so named because “all other domain names were taken”).
Inspired by Jeffrey Zeldman’s “20 signs you don’t want that web design project,” Chris Applegate offered the 20 Signs of Social Media Disaster, including your client insisting you remove criticism from their Wikipedia page or instructing you to post their link in forums. So, for those who are having a hard time right now in this terrible economy, here is a laugh to get you through the holidays.
20 signs you don’t want that social media project
1. Client calls it an “internet blog”.
2. Client has a “hilarious” viral they want you to “seed”, which turns out to be their latest TV ad on YouTube.
3. Bonus points if the above is a ripoff of a famous existing meme.
4. Client demands that the viral use Mr T, David Hasselhoff, or both.
5. Client wants something edgy “like that suicide bomber viral” – but first subject to clearance by their legal department.
6. “I don’t see why we need to pay you so much when we could just email all these bloggers a press release.
7. “This Tom Coates guy, can we get him on board? I heard he’s really popular.”
8. Client admits to anonymously posting links to their site on a range of forums.
9. Client insists that you anonymously post links to their site on a range of forums
10. Client panics over a random blogger’s negative post about them and orders you to get it taken down. Won’t take “sorry, it’s impossible” for an answer.
11. Client says their new site is “really Web 2.0″ but it’s made entirely in Flash with no permalinks.
12. Client enthuses about their new blog presence. Will there be comments? No.
13. Client asks you to invite bloggers to an event, but to keep it quiet as “we don’t want any nutters turning up”.
14. Client says, “I want this top of the charts on Digg”.
15. Client demands you delete all the negative criticism from the Wikipedia article about them.
16. Every Tweet you post to client’s official Twitter stream has to be OK’ed by the brand manager first.
17. Client says they’re sure the photoblog you’ve built for them is nice, but their corporate firewall has blocked Flickr.com so they can’t see it.
18. Client refuses to budget for site moderation on their new UGC site, then is angrily surprised once B3ta discover it and submit lots of pictures of crudely drawn cocks.
19. Client has spent a six-figure sum on a presence in Second Life.
20. Client says, “We want our site to be as popular as, you know, Facebook.”