This is what a UK firmed discovered the hard way this week when its Twitter feed
featured popular "hashtags" with messages not even remotely connected to the topic. Hashtags are keywords or tags that are incorporated to the tweet so that people will easily find the messages related to the keyword of topic.
Twitter users cried foul when furniture company Habitat started posting messages with the hashtag #Iran with messages hawking furniture. The company was accused of spamming the network, using the hashtags to attract Twitter users to its site. Iran has been a trending topic on Twitter since 2 weeks ago when protests started to escalate in the country due to the results of the recently concluded presidential elections. People who wanted to read about the current events in Iran were appalled when they found messages related to furniture posted with the hashtag . The furniture company has since apologized and said the messages were posted by an over-eager intern.
While the use of the inappropriate hashtags may have resulted in more people visiting the company's Twitter, the act of putting unrelated hashtags to messages will still not deliver the desired result which is an increase in furniture sales. The most important thing in social marketing is building TRUST. When you have managed to build trust with consumers then sales and success will follow. In the case of Habitat UK, the wrong tactic used by the intern has hurt the reputation of the brand instead of helping it.
This is why companies should really take social media seriously. While it is a less formal method of communicating with the public it does not mean that the company should not be careful about the messages that it publishes. Because Twitter, Facebook and all these social networks can reach millions of people, then all the more companies and individuals should be careful about the kind of image they project to the public. Every single message posted on these social networks should be carefully drafted and should boost the image of a brand. All photos, videos and other materials posted by the company should be carefully so as not to offend, cause harm, damage the reputation of the company or cause confusion among the public.
Companies should look at Twitter as a PR tool to reach more people and to communicate with them. Social media help companies build better relationships with clients. They are not designed for hard selling or hard-selling.