(1) Fake Barack Obama injury
In 2013 hackers managed to access the Twitter account of the Associated Press and posted: ?Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured.? Unsurprisingly, given the presidents role as the de-facto leader of the free world, the stock markets recoiled in horror and panic trading saw the S&P 500 decline 0.9 per cent. That might seem like a small number, but it was worth $130bn in value. The Associated Press and the White House were quick to correct the fake tweet and the market recovered quickly, but it showed how much damage could be done with such a small amount of characters.(2) Donald Trump?many times
Twitter?s 280-character limit trial hijacked by companies joking around While Twitter’s 280-character limit trial was intended to help people ?express themselves? ? the result of findings from its own research ? companies have already started experimenting with it.(3) Bernie Sanders gets angry
Another from a political leader, this time Democrat Bernie Sanders. Famous for being the Vermont senator who took Hillary Clinton all the way to the wire in the battle to be Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, Sanders managed to bring about a 15 per cent share price loss for Ariad. Despite only having 2.6m Twitter followers, his post declaring the greed of drug corporations to be ?unbelievable? cost pharmaceutical business Ariad $387m. He was angry that the company had raised the price of its leukaemia drug to ?almost $199,000 a year? and let his feelings be known. (4) Twitter itself
Life on the stock market is hard work, something well known to Twitter itself. After listing in 2013, Twitter’s share price has not exactly soared. In fact, only recently did a good revenue and profit update push it back above listing price. In April 2015 its own financial results caused a bit of a meltdown when financial technology company Selerity gained access to what were thought to be confidential Twitter figures and posted an update on the social media platform. Unfortunately for Twitter, the financials showed a poor first quarter of the year and brought about a little shareholder panic. A halt in trading was required as Twitter executives scrambled to deal with the situation.(5) And one going the other way?
She?s worth billions of dollars herself, but when Oprah Winfrey tweeted about Weight Watchers it was the corporate that boosted its own coffers. Upon tweeting: ?Eat bread. Lose weight. Whaaatttt? #ComeJoinMe?, the US-based company saw its share price surge by 20 per cent. Winfrey herself benefitted from this surge thanks to her ten per cent ownership in the business. She paid $43m for the stake in the weight-loss company in October 2015 and has since gone on to be one of its biggest ambassadors and cheerleaders. With a Twitter following of 41.6m, Winfrey has the ability to reach a huge audience and influence the direction of companies she is interested in.
How real are your organisation?s Twitter followers? Twitter celebrated its tenth anniversary on 21 March ? however, the milestone has prompted many to question the social network?s relevancy today and, most importantly, its future.Share this story