A departing communications staff member at HMV scored a social media first when he or she began live tweeting from what was described as a mass firing of 60 employees. The first tweet to appear said. “We’re tweeting live from HR where we’re all being fired. Exciting!! #hmvXFactorFiring”.
The tweets kept coming for a full 15 minutes before the Marketing Director apparently discovered what was happening was alleged to have been overheard saying “how do I shut down Twitter?” According to the live feed the Marketing Director is not one of those at risk of redundancy. Clearly the organisation hadn’t considered the social media risks when they called the comms team down to the HR department. The tweet stream gave a clue as to the level of senior involvement in social media when it referred to the fact that HMV had used an intern to set up the account.
The tweets then stopped abruptly and were erased from the account – apparently the Marketing Direct found out how to shut the channel down. Business closures are never very pleasant and I hope the HR team and the remaining senior management see the rebel tweets for what they were which was a gallant last stand by employees loyal to the brand. Anything else would be another PR disaster for the brand and any going concern that survives the cull.
For those of you that missed them here are the tweets in full before they vanished into the ether.
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PR and the Social Web 