We all know the twitter/habitat screw up by now. But if you don't here's it in a nutshell
Yesterday, Habitat apologised for its promotional messages on Twitter, which also tried to ride on the back of interest in the launch of the latest Apple iPhone.
Irrelevant hashtags featured in the messages included '#mousavi', referring to an Iranian presidential candidate, and '#iphone'.
The promotion was designed to sign people up to its database with the chance to win a £1,000 gift card.
According
to a Sky News Habitat's communications team said they had not
authorised the messages, but they have confirmed they were not hacked.
"The
hashtags were uploaded without Habitat's authorisation by an
overenthusiastic intern who did not fully understand the ramifications
of his actions. He is no longer associated with Habitat," a spokesman
said.
Twitter users accused Habitat of spamming and its mistake
was heavily retweeted on the micro blogging service. It was being
touted as a case study example of what marketers should not do on
Twitter.
The offending tweets have since been removed and Habitat promised to "do better for the Twitter community".
Okay, it was a very stupid thing to do by any standards but I don't believe it was the work of "an over enthusiastic intern who did not fully understand the ramifications of his actions", I would have thought the intern is exactly the sort of person who would understand Twitter. So are they pointing the finger at the innocent?
An even if I'm wrong, I still have a problem, if it were a particularly stupid intern, until clients and agencies in this country start to give social media opportunities the respect they deserve then they will continue to make fools of themselves in the
future.
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