The HMV staffer responsible for yesterday’s web-jamming Twitter jag has come clean.
As you’ll no doubt have seen, HMV’s official Twitter account was sabotaged by an aggrieved employee, who fired off a string of messages documenting her firing in real time yesterday lunchtime. Choice snippets included “There are over 60 of us being fired at once! Mass execution, of loyal employees who love the brand. #hmvXFactorFiring” and “these accounts were set up by an intern (unpaid, technically illegal) two years ago”.
As Dummy report, the ex-employee in question has now gone public. 21-year-old Poppy Rose Cleere – who, it turns out, was herself the “intern” referred to in the posts – took to her personal Twitter account to explain her actions and clear up a few misconceptions. Her comments read as follows:
“It’s been an amazing two and a bit years with hmv! (Only 1 & 1/2 officially) Such a shame it had to end on that note. Someone had to speak! I would apologise for the #hmvXFactorFiring tweets but I felt like someone had to speak. As someone without a family to support/no mortgage I felt that I was the safest person to do so. Not to mention, I wanted to show the power of Social Media to those who refused to be educated.
“Just to set something straight, I did not ‘hijack’ the hmv twitter account. I actually assumed sole responsibility of Twitter & Facebook — over two years ago, as an intern.When asked (this afternoon), I gladly provided the password to head office. I also set another member of staff up as a manager on Facebook, and removed myself from the admin list. I didn’t resist any requests to cooperate. Since my internship started, I worked tirelessly to educate the business of the importance of Social Media – not as a short-term commercial tool, but as a tool to build and strengthen the customer relationship, and to gain invaluable real-time feedback from the consumers that have kept us going for over 91 years. While many colleagues understood and supported this, it was the more senior members of staff who never seemed to grasp its importance. I hoped that today’s actions would finally show them the true power and importance of Social Media, and I hope they’re finally listening. Now, I should probably go and hide for a while…Thank you so much for your supportive tweets! Much love to the hmv staff & customers.”
HMV called in the administrators last month, putting 4,500 jobs at 247 stores across the country under threat. Although the prognosis is still pretty grim for the company, it was reported last week that its debt had been purchased by retail restricturing group Hilco UK. Retail magnate Theo Paphitis has also been in talks to buy portions of the company.
