#Cringe: will big companies (like HMV) ever get Twitter?

Redundancies are never easy. Even less so when developments are live-tweeted to 73,000 followers, complete with a catchy #hmvXFactorFiring hashtag.

“Sorry we’ve been quiet for so long,” the rogue tweeter said on Thursday afternoon from the official HMV account. “Under contract, we’ve been unable to say a word, or – more importantly – tell the truth.”

The tweets have been deleted, but the damage is done.

And to add insult to injury, the woman behind the rogue tweets has been giving her own advice to the company.

“I hoped that today’s actions would finally show them the true power and importance of Social Media,” tweeted @poppy_powers, “and I hope they’re finall listening”.

#Cringe

Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms are no longer the terrain of the media savvy alone. But big corporations still manage to get it epically wrong. Another example is Tesco – one the UK’s biggest supermarkets. As a mark of how seriously it took the revelation that some of its frozen burgers contained horse meat, it took out a full page apology in most of the national newspapers.

Online however, it had a different tactic, and tweeted: “It’s sleepy time so we’re off to hit the hay! See you at 8am for more #TescoTweets”. (It later apologised for the unfortunate choice of words.)

“Companies don’t take social media seriously, in terms of putting in resources and understanding how significant it is to your business,” Anna Drennan, marketing manager at Conversocial told Channel 4 News.

Companies don’t take social media seriously, in terms of putting in resources and understanding how significant it is to your business. Anna Drennan, Conversocial

James Leavesley, CrowdControlHQ chief executive agrees. He says that the HMV twitastrophy showed for the first time the “deficiencies in how organisations manage and control their social media access and activity”.

“It was obvious that senior management did not have any idea of how powerful the backlash on social media would be from their own staff on the company’s social media accounts.”

Obviously HMV is in crisis after being put into administration, and social media is probably not the only thing to have slipped managers’ minds. But as the most immediate way to communicate with its customers, marketing experts say it should be high on the priority list.

The companies that get it right: read more on 02 and the other hijacked campaigns that went well

Wake-up call?

So will these companies ever learn? The fact that HMV’s rogue tweeting has made the headlines will be a wake-up call to many, says Jason Woodford, SiteVisibility CEO.

“Lessons get learnt,” he told Channel 4 News. “Chief executives and marketing executives will realise that they need to take it seriously.”

They will also be well aware that it could have been worse, adds Mr Woodford, who says it is testimony to the employees that nothing more damaging came out.

Of course some companies manage to get it right. Channel 4 News previously looked at the companies that managed to turn negative social media campaigns into something positive.

But for those that don’t, part of the problem is that they are either too scared to get properly involved, or too lax with controls. The ideal should be somewhere in between, said Ms Woodford.

Human touch

“There’s a challenge, because you need to be able to be fluid,” Ms Drennan told Channel 4 News. “Consumers want something in particular in communication from brands – they ask for it to be real.”

There is no getting away from the fact that a mere human hand lies behind it. One click can be devastating, as KitchenAid discovered when an employee used the company’s twitter account by mistake to make a joke about Obama’s deceased grandmother.

Companies used to having control should be prepared for slip-ups – but be able to fix them when they go wrong, says Ms Drennan.

Unlike HMV, where managers appeared to have no access to the company twitter account. “Just overhead our Marketing Director (he’s staying, folks) ask: “How do I shut down Twitter?” #hmvXFactorFiring.”

And as the rogue HMV tweeter demonstrates so well, if all else fails – be funny.