Even in Twitter’s infancy, brands embarrassed itselves.
Today, Twitter is celebrating its tenth birthday. Hard to believe it’s been a decade of #brandfails and social media managers making cringe-worthy comments almost on a daily basis. But before this became the new normal — where were you when US Airways tweeted out an X-rated picture of a toy airplane? — there were simpler times.
Using Twitter’s #FirstTweet contraption, we’ve compiled a list of brands’ first tweets to remind the world what faceless companies were like before they engaged in real-time marketing, hijacked hashtags or created cringe-worthy GIFs.
Here they are:
Approving some friend requests on my myspace page: http://tinyurl.com/2aw9w7
— Delta (@Delta) May 10, 2007
Hello Twitterati, The Washington Post is listening.
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 18, 2008
Hello Tweeps! Let’s talk.
— Pepsi™ (@pepsi) March 30, 2009
Welcome to the MySpace twitter account! Find out what’s happening on MySpace here.
— Myspace (@Myspace) February 20, 2009
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Red Lobster? @reply to let us know!
— Red Lobster (@redlobster) October 31, 2011
Hooked on Internet :-)
— Wix.com (@Wix) June 13, 2007
Today is the 1st day @Oreo is Tweeting! Who loves Oreo cookies? #followme
— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) August 2, 2010
Trying to remember the combination to the KFC secret recipe safe. It has to be around here somewhere, dagnabbit!
— KFC (@kfc) July 11, 2008
Good morning Twitterverse! Charmin is committed to inspiring people around the country to have a better bathroom experience!
— Charmin (@Charmin) June 29, 2011
Testing out the SlateOlympics Twitter feed.
— Slate (@Slate) August 5, 2008
Hello, world. We’re going to give this Twitter thing a whirl. (Hey, better late than never)
— Yahoo (@Yahoo) February 9, 2009
It is a Monday!…. oh, wait, it is a Monday….:( Anything good on TV tonight?
— Kohl’s (@Kohls) April 27, 2009
Is this thing on? So, what shall we talk about?
— Arby’s (@Arbys) June 29, 2010
More in Marketing
‘Worried about getting caught out’: Sir Martin Sorrell on why CMOs are not ready to pay for outcome-based agencies
A steady economy is emerging as the quiet counterweight to AI’s much-hyped reinvention of the agency holdco model.
‘More focused on advertising than ever before’: Nearly all of X’s top 100 advertisers returned, ads boss claims
Claim comes as X is embroiled in latest scandal that involves it’s AI chatbot Grok creating sexualized images of women and minors.
CES 2026: Agentic AI hype vs. media buyers’ pragmatism
CES 2026 was all about agentic AI, but Digiday’s Seb Joseph shares why media buyers are approaching the hype around autonomous media buying with pragmatism over urgency.