The role of social media and networking sites in keeping the world
informed of events in Iran has been enormous in the last couple of weeks.
Iranians have used YouTube to show the world what the authorities there
have prevented foreign journalists from filming. Twitter has been alive
with tales from inside the country and messages of support from outside
of it. Amongst all of this important and worthy activity though has
emerged a story that has caused a PR disaster for a furniture store
which has little or nothing to do with Iran...
Habitat decided last week that the Twitterverse was a good place to
bolster it's database of customers, presumably so they could send
conventional marketing materials to that database. The mortal sin that
Habitat committed though was to include the top hashtags - the terms
that are being most talked about on Twitter at any given time in it's
posts. Including these hashtags meant that Habitat's messages were
exposed to Twitter users (who were actually seeking Tweets about Iran)
much more than they would have been normally. This is not a new
practice on Twitter and it is recognised as a form of spam by many, but
it is not a practice that you expect to see from an established and
reputable high street brand.
Unfortunately for Habitat, their decision to use important world events
as a way of bolstering their database was a decidedly stupid one which
has quickly provoked criticism from the Twitter community, this in turn
caused the blogging community to condemn their actions and soon after
this, the broadcast media and national newspapers joined the chorus of
disapproval.
Habitat's formal and vague apology for this transgression only goes to
show that this is a company who have no proper understanding of social media and the differences it has to
conventional media. Many companies are making a dash to get their products, services and brands onto Facebook, Twitter and the rest, but if they fail to understand the fundamentals; join the conversation, focus on relationships not key messages, then it can seriously backfire. The ability to post amusing photos on Facebook of the office Christmas party does not qualify one of your junior staff to manage your brand in the social media landscape.
