HMV Twitter fiasco was a 'wake-up call'

The Chief Executive of the UK’s only social media risk management firm has reacted to the HMV Twitter fiasco stating it has been a ‘wake-up call’. 

James Leavesley, Chief Executive of CrowdControlHQ, has hit out at large organisations that ignore the power of social media and the internal risks it poses.

His comments come in the wake of yesterday’s HMV Twitter fiasco when HMV employees started live tweeting about job losses and confidential company business.

He said: “The HMV fiasco has highlighted some of the major issues large companies and public sector organisations face and for the first time this has shown the deficiencies in how organisations manage and control their social media access and activity.

It was obvious that senior management did not have any idea of how powerful the backlash on social media would be from their own staff on the company’s social media accounts.”

Mr Leavesley’s leading social media security software enables corporate firms and public sector organisations to act as a social media ‘Big Brother’ – allowing them to manage employee access to the organisation’s social media accounts.

During HMV’s crisis on Thursday, CrowdControlHQ would have enabled the marketing director to shut down employee access at any time, as well as using it to moderate and monitor content being put out on the organisation's own social media channels. 

The software company has an impressive client base including a number of UK Police forces, councils and corporate organisations. CrowdControlHQ was used to monitor and moderate social media activity for Team GB during the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Mr Leavesley added: “The majority of organisations limit their social media management to either manual searches for mentions of their name or via  listening tool to automate this process. But this only covers the external risks of social media and all too often it is poorly structured and managed.

The HMV Twitter fiasco has been a wake-up call to companies, highlighting the internal risks of social media and the need to ensure that management systems and processes are in place to limit access during times of crisis or at least to have full audit trails in place.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

CorwdControlHQ is the UK’s only social media risk management and monitoring software helping both corporate firms and public sector organisations manage the risk of social media.

For more intormation log on to www.crowdcontrolhq.com

Denise Haskew

Head of Marketing

CrowdControlHQ

T:   0121 710 4462
T:   @crowdcontrolHQ
W:  www.crowdcontrolHQ.com

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