Employee Live Tweets During Layoffs at HMV

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Note to companies: Maintain control of your Twitter feed, particularly in tough times. At British Electronics company HMV, an employee "live tweeted" during layoffs.

  HMV Tweets

We can understand the marketing director's wanting to stop the tweets, but it sounds funny for him to ask, "How do I shut down Twitter?" That's like wanting to stop Facebook. We've all had that dream.

When the company reclaimed control over the feed (I'm not sure how), they tweeted this response:

HMV Response
Discussion Starters:

  • How could HMV have prevented the Twitter feed from being hijacked? Should management have anticipated this, or is that too much to expect?
  • How do you assess the company's response? What, if anything, should management have done differently?