Taco Bell Goes “Dark” On Social Media To Promote Mobile Ordering App

Taco Bell, one of the more active brands on social media, went into shutdown mode today, sort of. In a stunt to promote a new mobile ordering and payment app, the company went dark on all its social media accounts and pointed all comers to a link to download the new app.

The stunt played out most drastically on Twitter, with Taco Bell’s account — which previously had more than 1.4 million followers — appeared to be brand new this morning. It briefly lost its verified status and at the time we posted this story it had only 1,200 followers and one tweet:

Mobile ordering is here. Download Now: http://t.co/TcorterNxB #OnlyInTheApp pic.twitter.com/qE2yy9swrI

— Taco Bell (@tacobell) October 28, 2014

Presumably, Taco Bell’s full account and followers will be restored after today’s adventure.

[Update: Matt Navarra, social media director of the The Next Web, pointed out on Twitter that Taco Bell’s social media team probably did a quick user name swap to this new account, which accounts for its brief loss of the verified checkmark. Switching back should be just as easy.]

[Update 2: We’ve located the account, as our follow-up story covers.]

The company’s Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr and Snapchat accounts each carried a similar message. The message seemed to resonate especially well on Instagram where the company sent nine updates each with a piece of the full image. The cumulative total of likes on the photos was more than 31,000.

Postscript: This Is Where Taco Bell’s “Missing” Twitter Has Gone is our follow-up story that has located where the “real” Taco Bell account went.