May 30, 2011 in Blog, Blogging, Business, Social Media by Jolita Abromaityte

Bad Social Media campaign: How NOT to use Twitter @HabitatUK

Twitter quickly became a popular social media tool, allowing businesses to spread the word and offer promotions to their customers in a space of 140 characters. However as any other tool, if used incorrectly it might damage your reputation.

One of the symbols used in Twitter is called a #hash-tag. It allows to associate tweets with an event (or product) and is created to help people to categorise messages. Hash-tags allow tracking topics, communities, live events or breaking news.

Here’s an example:

Clicking on the hash-tagged word shows you all tweets in that category. It is advised not to use more than 3 hash-tags per tweet and of course only use them on tweets that are relevant to the topic.

That’s where HabitatUK went wrong.

 A trendy furniture store signed up to Twitter and wanted to make sure their tweets were noticed. HabitatUK have started using hash-tags that had absolutely nothing to do with furniture. They chose such popular words and brands as Apple, iPhone and even a contestant from Australia’s Masterchef that got voted off #Poh that week.

 This looks like a great spamming example and no wonder people were outraged and reacted.

 

 How did HabitatUK respond to these messages? They deleted their tweets and instead released new ones, related to the products they sell.  And a few days later they also apologised for their offending tweets.

Lesson learned: when marketing your products, services or brand, make sure you do put up relevant content.  Otherwise you might get more attention than you bargained for.

 Case Study by Jolita Abromaityte