Somebody should tell Burger King and Jeep the Chinese word for crisis is "danger" and "opportunity."
A lot has been written about how to manage your social media reputation. There have been plenty of companies that created social media blunders. But a social media hack to these large consumer based corporations is an opportunity in disguise.
Done right, people could be talking about what these companies did after their twitter accounts were hacked for years to come. Right now Burger King and Jeep seem "human" and "vulnerable" with consumers. This gives them an affinity no other company can even come close to achieving. Let's have a show of hands of how many companies would like to be in their shoes right now.
Burger King could respond to this hack by offering a $0.25 Whoper to every person who goes to their store and shows they are a follower. Jeep could run a promotion: 10 Reasons My Jeep Is Better Than A Hacker. The top 50 winners would receive a gift bag from Jeep. Similar to the successful Kleenex social media promotion. The media, of course, will pick up on these stories right away because they're an interesting angle on a hot new internet topic.
Creative people find ways to turn a bad situation into an opportunity. Look what happened when Makers Mark was going to water-down their booze. Their users freaked, they listened, and turned a potential disaster into a social media win.
Will Burger King and Jeep step up to the social media plate? It looks like Burger King already took a swing and a miss with their lame apology. Let's go Jeep.