While most Americans were winding up their holiday weekends last Monday, the phones at the Vancouver headquarters of HootSuite, a social media management company, began to ring.
Burger King’s Twitter account had just been hacked. The company’s logo had been replaced by a McDonald’s logo, and rogue announcements began to appear. One was that Burger King had been sold to a competitor; other posts were unprintable.
“Every time this happens, our sales phone lines light up,” said Ryan Holmes, the chief executive of HootSuite, which provides management and security tools for Twitter accounts, including the ability to prevent someone from gaining access to an account. “For big brands, this is a huge liability,” he said, referring to the potential for being hacked.
What happened to Burger King and, a day later, to Jeep is every brand manager’s nightmare. While many social media platforms began as a way for ordinary users to share vacation photos and status updates, they have now evolved into major advertising vehicles for brands, which can set up accounts free but have to pay for more sophisticated advertising products.
Read also:
#this: Hack it your way on Twitter (The Daily Titan)
Twitter Account of Pistorius?s Brother Hacked (Daily Beast)
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