What you can learn from Chevron’s brandjacking
You can take steps to head off such online onslaughts, but sometimes they happen anyway. Try these tactics when the slings and arrows are headed your way.
In the past, hashtags like #AskJPM and #myNYPD have been set up by companies and organizations—J.P. Morgan and the New York Police Department in these cases—looking to engage their audiences.
Both times, the “brands” behind the hashtags were looking for responses and to get conversations started in an innocent, positive way. They were looking for interaction and engagement. However, in both situations, the results fell short as the potentially positive efforts were hijacked by those with negative intentions.
This week, it looked as though Chevron—a global oil and gas company—was heading down a similar path to disaster when #AskChevron started trending on Twitter. The tweets were less than flattering:
#AskChevron how many billion $ in subsidies did you receive from the US government in 2013, while you earned $21 billion?
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