Kentucky is making headlines again. This time it has nothing to do with domain names and everything to do with, um, chicken. In an attempt to promote its new line of grilled chicken, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) turned to “The Oprah Winfrey Show” offering free coupons for a free 2-piece grilled chicken meal coupon, downloaded at Oprah.com. Within days, more than 10.5 million coupons were downloaded, and the promotion appeared to be a huge success. But as it turns out, it was everything but that.

Across the U.S., KFC’s were literally inundated with long lines of patrons trying to redeem the coupons, and the restaurants simply couldn’t keep up with the demand. KFC execs pulled the promotion, and were required to do additional commercials to apologize.

Having your brand promoted on the Oprah show is a marketing dream come true. An endorsement from Oprah is simply commanding. Forget KFC for a second and think back to her endorsement of U.S. President Barack Obama, which was one of the most widely covered developments of the 2008 presidential campaign. So the question remains, why was KFC finding itself in the middle of a marketing disaster?

Well it’s simple, actually. Social media stepped in and showed who’s boss.

Within hours, I witnessed the promotion and coupon URL spreading at a velocity that competed with the recent social media marketing of Susan Boyle. It’s the fact that there was shared dialogue spreading virally, instantly intensifying the word of mouth to new and occasional customers, who might not have otherwise considered KFC. The problem is, those customers probably won’t consider KFC again, at least not for awhile, not after KFC left them high and dry. The colonel’s secret recipe obviously didn’t include a marketing disaster back-up plan.

I’ve never really subscribed to the theory that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. It’s one thing for millions of people to remember a brand or a name, but it’s another thing for them to remember it and associate it with something unpleasant.

In a nutshell, the KFC fiasco is an example of engagement marketing gone wrong. The goal of engagement marketing is to build a two-way dialogue to create relationships that benefit both customers and organizations. Embracing a marketing strategy that allows companies to deeply connect with its customers is a smart way to build lasting relationships and ultimately, brand loyalty.

KFC nailed the act of engagement marketing, they just weren’t prepared to handle the aftermath. Companies need to recognize that in the new era of real-time Web, anyone with internet access has a fair stake at making or breaking a brand. Brands are defined by the very people who are influenced by them – customers. Do follow KFC’s lead and connect to customers and prospects alike, but make sure you are beyond prepared where KFC clearly wasn’t -- the response rate. A recent headline about the KFC debacle pretty much summarizes where things are at in the court of public opinion. I’ll tell you what the headline says, and I’ll leave it at that: “Cluck You, KFC.”