Twitter is virtually erupting right now with 140 character bursts of anger against the perceived injustice of the Casey Anthony “Not Guilty” murder verdict. And, as they are wont to do, some social media expert at baked goods manufacturer Entenmann’s made a grave trending topic related mistake.
Depending on what you believe, the voice of @Entenmann’s either decided it would be funny to hashtag surf on the trending #notguilty hashtag or sincerely didn’t look and just stuck a random #notguilty in a tweet about eating tasty tweets, presumably to get pickup.
This of course backfired. After follower backlash, Entenmann’s deleted the tweet and apologized,”Sorry everyone, we weren’t trying to reference the trial in our tweet! We should have checked the trending hashtag first” and then following up with “Our #notguilty tweet was insensitive, albeit completely unintentional. We are sincerely sorry.”
Oh the perils of hashtag surfing! While the company itself says the association with the Casey Anthony trial was unintentional, I find it pretty hard to believe that anyone would tweet something including a trending hashtag without looking at what that hashtag referenced first.
In any case, it looks like Entenmann’s has raised the bar for social media stupidity, taking the cup from previous #winner @KennethCole. Key takeaway for brands: Some trending topics aren’t to be tweeted lightly.
Update: And of course, there’s now an @EntenmannsPR parody Twitter account.
Sorry everyone, we weren't trying to reference the trial in our tweet! We should have checked the trending hashtag first.—
Entenmann's (@Entenmanns) July 05, 2011
Our #notguilty tweet was insensitive, albeit completely unintentional. We are sincerely sorry.—
Entenmann's (@Entenmanns) July 05, 2011
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