Over the last couple of years, it's fair to say there has been a growing trend concerning the hacking of commercial Twitter accounts. From Jeep and Jamie Oliver to the Associated Press and Thomson Reuters, countless companies and high profile celebs have fallen victim to Twitter hackers over the last couple of years... and needless to say, the thought of someone hacking into their account and sending fake tweets on their behalf is enough to give anyone nightmares, regardless of who they are and how many followers they have.
The thing about Twitter hacks is there's just no way to hide them. While it might be easy to put a positive spin on other incidents concerning your business, with Twitter it's instantaneous and real-time - so if you get hacked, your followers are going to know about it - sometimes before you even know about it yourself! What's more, it's 100% public... so, unless you're really on the ball, there's just no way to get around it and cover it up.
Now, while the thought of a hacked Twitter account sounds like a PR nightmare, there have been a few incidents over the last couple of years where a hacked Twitter account has actually turned out to be a good thing for a company. The most famous example of this is the McDonald's/Burger King Hack. In Februrary, hackers (Anonymous later took responsibility) broke into the Burger King account, changed the user name to "McDonald's" and the picture to a McDonald's logo and sent out random McDonald's-related tweets. So what happened? Did the Twitter hack destroy Burger King's social media presence and send lots of followers running for their biggest rivals? Erm... not quite. As a result of the hack, Burger King ended up picking up 20,000 new followers!
While everything turned out well in the end for Burger King, it's pretty obvious the burger chain didn't want or plan the attack - I mean, no one would actually want their Twitter account to be hacked, would they? Well, we're not sure about anyone wanting their account to be hacked - but we have come across an incident this week where a company in America faked a Twitter hack of their own account.
Yes, you did read that right! Let me explain - Burrito chain Chipotle admitted this week that it faked a Twitter hack on its account in an attempt to promote its 20th anniversary and pick up more followers. On Sunday, followers of the fast food chain saw its official Twitter account send out some pretty random tweets before being told later the account had been "compromised". The fact that Chipotle picked up 4000 new followers during and after the incident seems to suggest they seemed to know exactly what they were doing and what they could potentially achieve as a result of the stunt.
Here at Bubble we were pretty surprised to hear what Chipotle had done... but when we researched the topic a bit more, we realised this isn't actually a one-off isolated incident at all. Earlier this year cable channels MTV and BET staged a Twitter hack when they essentially swapped accounts for an hour or so and started posting fun, jokey tweets on behalf of the other.
Both the Chipotle and MTV/BET incidents resulted in increased followers and a lots of nice, free publicity for the brands - both of which are normally pretty hard to come by without spending shed-loads of cash - so you can sort of understand why they did it - but in my opinion, I'm just not sure it's worth the risk.
Regardless of whether you're a small, niche business or you're a multi-national corporation with hundreds of thousands of fans, you have to work hard to build up a following and an engaged social community across platforms like Twitter - and, whether real or not, Twitter hacks have the potential to destroy all that hard work and trust in an instant. Think about it; if you're a company like Sony, you have lots of private, confidential user records and details in your database - if managed to hack into their Twitter account, wouldn't questions be raised about the security concerning their other sites/profiles?!
Similarly, when it comes to social media, it's all about sending out a clear, consistent brand message - regardless of the topic, one or two tweets that are slightly off-brand have the potential to destroy this brand image... so is it really worth the risk?
At the end of the day, as we've seen, Twitter hacks have the potential to be a hugely successful PR stunt... but they also come with their own risks. Yes, Burger King managed to pick up 20,000 new followers - but they also had the potential to lose 20,000 - and it's the same with all Twitter hacks, real or faked.
I suppose it all ultimately comes down to the individual brand and the type of communities they've already built up - while for commercial brands like Burger King, there are less risks attached because the audience are purely consumer-driven, when it comes to a trusted authority like Thomson Reuters or the Press Association, the risks are far greater because the audience have a clear reason for following. In this case, any tweets which throw the organisation's credibility into doubt are sure to have far-reaching, long-lasting consequences.
I'm definitely keen to hear your thoughts on this one. Would you ever consider faking a Twitter hack to boost your follower numbers and get some free publicity? Or do you think the risks outweigh the potential rewards?