So far, Twitter accounts of major brands, Burger King and Jeep, have been hacked, and it’s only Tuesday. In case you’ve been under a rock, here’s a look at what’s been going on in the Twitterverse:
Burger King’s Twitter account was hacked yesterday morning:
Image c/o Mashable
Jeep’s Twitter account was hacked today around 10:30am PST:
We can view these attacks two ways: negatively or positively. In the case of Burger King, I personally think this is a blessing in disguise. With a growth of about
30k new followers, Burger King gained more recognition as a brand than it has on its own (creepy King mascot, anyone?).
However, BK disappointingly apologized with dull corporate speak when they could have optimized on the opportunity and not take Twitter too seriously, because other people sure weren’t. The fact is that this hack was blatantly obvious so this was a golden opportunity for Burger King to play along and build a quick social media campaign pointing to this instance after regaining control of the account (Come on BK, learn from Oreo’s monster success with their quick-thinking Super Bowl social media graphic!). By simply ignoring much of what happened and tweeting last night at 9pm PST, Burger King is also ignoring their newest followers and will lose the momentum that this hack actually created. Hopefully, their social media team will have something up their sleeve in the next 24 hours.
We’ll see how Jeep reacts to this morning’s takeover. In the meantime, I’ll get some popcorn ready.