Why, hello Friday. As per the custom ’round these parts, today is the day we publish the list of 5 stories you might have missed. Thing is, there were so many interesting, juicy tidbits about Twitter marketing and management this week, we decided to devote the entire list to our favorite little birdie. Let the tweeting begin! (And to follow us on Twitter, go here.)
1. Whack Hack: Oh, Chipotle. How could you? In what’s one of the most polarizing Twitter campaigns in recent memory, to celebrate its 20th birthday, the burrito mecca’s Twitter account was “hacked” on Sunday. But the hacking in question was actually a ploy by Chipotle to promote the milestone while picking up new followers. The company fessed up to Mashable later in the week, but the scam already had worked: Chipotle gained a whopping 4,000 new followers. Is this genius Twitter marketing or just plain shady? Let us know in the comments.
2. Favorites Are Our Favorite: Favorites are in! This May, Twitter users hit their ‘favorite’ buttons 1.6 billion times. But what is it? Favoriting a tweet lets users know you loved what they were laying down in 140 characters. Think Facebook ‘like’ without the evil corporate agenda behind it. Favoriting has become a safer, less intimate way for regular folks, brands and celebrities alike to communicate with followers. In time, ‘favorites’ could be a real commodity for brands and it is certainly a marketing trend to watch.
3. Twitter Twalk: We love coming up with Twitter-inspired words almost as much as we love Twitter itself. After all, the site has a language all its own, and an ever-changing one at that. This funny post by TIME Magazine’s Katy Steinmetz looks at the ebb and flow of Twitter-inspired words and the forces that create them.
4. More Faking It: Et tu, Twitter? B.S. tweets praising products have existed on the site for years, but when the pretend tweets in question come from Twitter itself, there’s a real problem. Twitter issued an apology on Thursday for a series of phony tweets touting one of its products. The big no-no here? Twitter used real bloggers and their images to endorse stuff without their knowledge. Twitter said sorry to its users and the ticked off bloggers and took down the tweets.
5. Geraldon’t: And finally, let’s all agree to learn from the poor judgment of one Geraldo Rivera on what not to tweet. A drunken, nearly-nude photo by the talk show host was tweeted this week, much to his 18-year-old daughter’s dismay, who told Rivera about the picture and ordered him to take it down. Geraldo said in his defense that it seemed like a good idea at the time. Sexy pictures on Twitter are never a good idea, especially for Geraldo. Let’s all keep Twitter fun and less gross while not embarrassing our kids, shall we?
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