A minor crisis turns out to be great publicity

On Monday Burger King’s official twitter site was hacked. The hackers played a terrible joke on the company by changing the avatar to the signature golden arches logo and the background to a McFish Bites promotional ad. The hackers also changed the profile description by saying McDonalds now owns the Burger King franchise. 

Burger King received criticism for the slew of offensive messages that went out under Burger King’s account name. One wouldn’t think things could get much worse for a company that just got busted for using horse meat in their burgers two weeks prior.

Surprisingly, this PR fiasco was not all bad for Burger King. Its Twitter followers grew by 5,000 within the first 30 minutes of the account being hacked. Only two days after the Twitter hijack the page received a whopping 30,000 new followers. Not to mention, this scandal conveniently outshines the whole horse meat issue. 

On Tuesday, Jeep’s official twitter account was also hijacked by the same Burger King hackers. The adjustments to their page were similar to the Burger King/ McDonalds edits. Jeep’s Twitter followers also increased by nearly 5,000 from the hacking crisis. 

It was important for both Burger King and Jeep to quickly recover the accounts and manage the hacking crisis before it got out of hand. If either company were to let this get out of control the impact could have been much more negative from the public… especially with the offensive images and messages being tweeted. Letting the hijacking last too long could have caused backlash towards Burger King and Jeep for being negligent and insensitive to potential consumers. 

After both companies regained control of their accounts, they seem to be in good spirits. And why shouldn’t they be? What could have been a PR disaster turned into an increase in followers and not too much flak from the media about the offensive tweets. MTV attempted to fake hack its Twitter account in hopes to gain some of the same publicity that Jeep and Burger King received. They have gotten a lot of backlash for the attempt. That is why it is never a good idea to create your own PR stunt. 

5 reasons your company should join the blogging club

Blogs appear to be popping up everywhere and it seems like almost everyone has one. From corporate companies to mom-bloggers, you can find a blog about almost any topic. However, some people are still hesitant to start a blog. Here are five reasons your company or client should jump on the blog bandwagon, according to PR Daily.

1. Search opportunity is knocking – If you have a blog, your company is more likely to show up in search results. By typing in key words in a search engine that your blog focuses on, you have another opportunity to show up in results, besides your company homepage. You can also use your blog to drive people to your main site.

2. Google gets fresh – Google has a new way to provide more up-to-date and relevant search results – the Google Fresh campaign. New, fresh content will rise on the search list, so having a blog with updated, relevant content each week will increase your chances of being seen by Google.

3. Social hub – Instead of directing customers to other media sources, use your company blog to drive them to your site. Introduce new products or topics related to your industry to attract potential new customers. It helps customers find information instead of them searching your site for it.

4. Viva la PR coverage – News coverage only lasts so long. Use your blog to summarize and link to the news coverage so it can get new life (and it’ll be on your blog forever).

5. Get personal – A blog is the perfect opportunity for current and potential customers (or employees) to learn more about what makes your company stand out. Posting about industry topics keeps you relevant, but posting about your employees or company outings can tell a person a lot more about your company. Even the writing style can reveal a lot about your business.

Having a company blog may seem like just another thing to add to your already lengthy to-do list, but in the long run the benefits outweigh the small amount of time it takes to run a blog. A weekly post is all it takes to have a presence in the blog world. 

Using a blog for IPR has added a lot to our social media strategy. It allows us to discuss topics that are of interest to us, and it also gives us more content for our other social media outlets. Each PR Specialist has the opportunity to write a post, which shows the diversity of our staff. Having an IPR blog is another tool for us to use to show our abilities as a PR firm.