We all know the story of the boy who cried wolf too many times. He did it for attention and when the real wolf showed up, no one would listen.
Social Media has it’s own version of the story now, only you substitute “boy” with “brand” and “wolf” with “hacker”. There seems to be a move by attention starved brand marketers to cry “We’ve been hacked” when, in fact, it is they that are the hackers.
Following the Hack Pack
Earlier this year, Burger Kings Twitter account was hacked and branded up to look like McDonalds. While the company tried to figure out a way to deal with the issue and find out how it happened, they started to gain more followers (over 30,000 before the account was suspended). Basically, like a vehicle accident, rubber neckers wanted to see the carnage that ensued.
What marketers saw, however, was an opportunity. Getting hacked gets you followers. Who cares if they are interested in your brand, or your product, or even your content. Followers are Followers and in the Marketer mindset of “More Followers Means We Are Better”, it was inevitable that someone would come up with the idea to cry WOLF! Enter the MTV – BET swap hack.
Within a day, MTV and BET were sporting confusing tweets, brand logos that didn’t match Twitter handles and news coming out from the PR department that “we’ve been hacked!” After a few hours of fun, they came clean with the fact that it was a marketing stunt. Ha, Ha. Gotcha. Well, when you consider that this is the network that brought us PUNK’D, I suppose it is forgivable. Once.
However, as with many marketing stunts, other companies see the success and, lacking any original ideas of their own, they dive in and copy from others. Enter Chipotle.
A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing
What they would later confirm as a stunt to promote their upcoming 20th Anniversary, Chipotle started spewing out Tweets that looked like someone had started tweeting from the Brands account, thinking that is was their personal account (certainly not unheard of. Just asked the unemployed PR guy who tweeted from a clients account instead of his own, in Detroit). The rep from Chipotle was excited by the stunt, stating that they went from about 250 new followers a day, to 4,000. That statement, right there, is proof that big brands do not understand how Social Media works. 250 new followers a day, people who may have a genuine interest in the brand or product, versus 4,000 people that just want to see the car wreck. It’s really no different than the thousands who started following the over-the-top rants of the Arizona Restaurant owners from Hell.
Is It Worth the Risk?
Here is the irony of what Chipotle did. The company has built a reputation around authenticity and integrity. Where is the authenticity and integrity in a stunt like this? Is it really worth your brands online reputation to pull a cheap stunt like this, just to gain more followers? According to the company, they were gaining 7,000 followers a month, already. Most companies would be thrilled by that kind of steady growth.
In the end, the company seems to still be dealing with some backlash from their regular followers, as well as their new ones, although it is starting to die down. The question is, will they be able to maintain those 4,000 new follower or will they lose them when the followers realize that the post-hack content isn’t all that interesting or engaging. What will be really interesting to see is when the next big company brand pulls this stunt (and you know they will). Will people come running to see what is happening, or will they simply say “bah, the boy is crying wolf…again!”
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