HMV Twitter Fail

For this weeks blog I want to discuss a popular HMV twitter scandal many of you may already be familiar with, the #hmvXFactorFiring that went viral last year. To refresh your memory, this scandal was the result of an intern who was let go alongside 60 other employees due to the company downsizing as the business was declining. The employee did not take the bad news lightly, instead she took over HMV’s twitter account and sent live tweets from the Human Resources department during the mass firing using hashtag “#hmvXFactorFiring”.

The first tweet that was sent out read, “We’re tweeting live from HR where we’re all being fired! Exciting!! #hmvXFactorFiring.” Following this was a series of hilarious tweets regarding the mass execution that the company obviously would not want their 60,000+ Twitter following to see at the time. (Refer to image below for more tweets).

I personally find humor in this scandal for multiple reasons. Not only is it hilarious to see a company completely fail to take charge of their twitter account in a timely manner, but it was their own employees that virally shamed them. For me, and I’m assuming many alike, this does not seem very professional. Clearly the company was not very strategic during the mass firing; executing vast amounts of angry employers without realizing some of them still had access to the company’s social platforms resulted in a full-blown disaster. By the time the administrator finally regained control of the account and deleted the messages, it was too late as the former employees clearly got their message across as visible in the screenshot above.

I believe HMV did a poor job further handling the situation. They deleted the tweets made by the intern and did not further comment on the twitter scandal. I think by ignoring the issues at hand with no further explanation, it leaves spectators confused and makes HMV look weak as a company. They should have at least sent out an apologetic tweet referencing the issue and what they plan to do to improve as a company.

Personally, as a social media intern myself at Rogers Television, I think its great when companies are able to give their workers access to social media platforms. It’s a great learning experience for entry- level hires to practice producing quality online content. Nonetheless, sabotaging your workplace in spite of an altercation is probably the least mature way to go about the situation. When situations like the HMV scandal arise, employers have the right to be skeptical about who has access to their social media handles and whether or not they are putting themselves at risk. This fear is completely valid, as shown through my example. There are lots of lessons to learn from this scandal, most of which center around policy and security. If the company had a better handle on their passwords then keeping track of who has access to what, and maintaining a better media management system could have stopped the situation from happening in the first place.