It never fails to surprise when a big concern like Habitat makes a mess of their social media.

Well maybe a story like this probably was bound to happen at some point soon – somehow some big corporates don’t have a feel for it -  but I am still shocked at how blatantly deceptive and poorly thought out this was.

Habitat are facing the ire of many Twitter folk at the moment after using hash tags inappropriately to drive traffic to a sales offer.  The fact that some hash tags were about the recent events in Iran did not help.

The thing about social media is that is gives the small guy a voice.  And many users see themselves as social media Robin Hoods: you cannot throw your corporate weight around or throw a big budget to get a result – you play by the same rules as everyone else.

Really, social media follows many of the same etiquette as face to face networking and other human interactions, so common sense, manners and a bit of thinking come in handy.  Three simple rules to start:

No hard sales – nothing turns people off you as being sold to, especially if they did not ask to be the centre of a sales talk

Be honest – try to fool people on social media sites and you set yourself up for a backlash

Listen and contribute as much as you speak and take, if not more – giver’s gain

Habitat say they are “sorry” and that this particular use of hash tags was “absolutely not authorised.“  Good so far, but as Habitat declined to name those responsible – in-house or agency – means that this will go on for a little longer than necessary.

Let’s be honest though, how many people enjoy something as big as Habitat messing up?

Tags: Habitat, online Robin Hood, Social media, Twitter

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 8:53 pm and is filed under Digital media, Online PR, PR, Social media, Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.