7/10 FTSE 100 names unclaimed on micro blogging platform Twitter
Major companies are at risk of being ‘brand-jacked’ online, with almost seven in ten of the FTSE100 leaving their company or brand ID on the micro blogging platform Twitter unclaimed.
This comes from brand communications agency Cow, which went through the Twitter ‘names’ of the FTSE100, following a fake Twitter account for oil giant Exxon Mobil being uncovered in the US over the weekend (links here and here).
Twitter allows you to broadcast short 140 character messages to anyone who chooses to follow you on their mobile phones or PC. Relatively few brands currently use Twitter to communicate with audiences, although the list is growing.
Four FTSE100 companies currently have active feeds – Thomson Reuters, British Airways, Pearson and Rio Tinto. Other organisations using Twitter include the BBC, No.10 Downing Street, and in the US, Presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
The dangers of ignoring social media services such as Twitter were illustrated last week in the US, when someone called ‘Janet’ took the ID twitter.com/exxonmobilcorp. Janet posted Exxon policy updates on issues such as global warming and the company’s CSR work and answered questions from Twitter followers.
In fact, she seemed so plausible that her efforts won Exxon Mobil praise for its forward thinking social media policy, except that it transpired Janet had nothing to do with them. Worse, it took bloggers and the US media to even bring Janet to Exxon’s attention, by which point she had posted several days worth of official looking comments.
At the moment, 69 Twitter names that relate to the FTSE100 are unregistered. Another 17 have been claimed but are inactive, with no clues given as to who owns the ID. Out of the remaining ten (excluding the four FTSE companies active on Twitter), a few have been genuinely registered by other organisations or members of the public. ‘Sky TV’ for example has been claimed by an Italian TV website (www.skylife.it).
Other registrations could be a little more dubious. For example, Sky’s parent company BskyB has had it’s name taken by someone who has never posted anything but claims to be writing a novel. Meanwhile twitter.com/sainsburys has been taken over by someone who calls him/herself ‘Sainsburys’ and it does indeed link back to the supermarket’s website. But the location listed is “in ur fridge” and the last and only post was nine months ago, which read “leaving bay leaves in ready meals specifically to annoy @ KISA.”
Names for sale
Meanwhile, a list of Twitter brand names have been registered and are for sale on a website for £20 ($40), meaning they can be easily picked up by someone wanting to either have a laugh at the brand’s expense or to be mischievous. These include Dominos Pizza, Dulux Paint, Eastenders, Alton Towers, Littlewoods and Ford Motor.
“Whether your brand decides to be there or not, the growth of social media means people will be talking about it”, says Cow director Dirk Singer. “Worse, as Exxon’s example shows, by staying away from services such as Twitter, you leave yourself open to people ‘reserving’ your brand name before you can, or even deciding to impersonate you online.
“Taking your Twitter feed takes literally minutes and it’s free. It’s also critical to protect your brand reputation. Any brand that hasn’t already done so really needs to do so now. After all, services like Twitter might not be something you want to use at the moment, even though there are good reasons why you should. But if you change your mind in future, it could then be too late as someone wanting to play a joke on you, hoping to make money, or having an axe to grind might have got there first.”
“At the most basic level you also need to make sure that micro-blogging platforms such as Twitter are part of your monitoring efforts. After all, you don’t want to be caught with your pants down like Exxon Mobil, who only found out about ‘Janet’ when contacted for comment.”
In addition to Twitter, Cow also recommends that brands do an audit of other social media channels to claim their brand IDs. This should include YouTube and the top five video sharing sites, the photo sharing community Flickr, and the social aggregator Friendfeed (which pulls together all your different social media updates on one page).
Notes to editors
We've commented more on this item, at our social media and marketing blog.
The figures quoted in this release about Twitter IDs are correct as of 2pm, Sunday 3 August.
Cow is a UK and South Africa brand communications consultancy, which does experiential marketing, events, PR, and through its emerging media division, Cowshed, social media work.
For further information
Dirk Singer, email dirk at thisiscow.com
Tel 0207 684 6933
Twitter - twitter.com/dirkthecow
