Protecting your corporate reputation on Twitter

As crisis communicators, we’ve seen a concerning new development on Twitter. With the new ability to purchase blue verification check marks on the platform, recently we saw an account impersonate the corporate Twitter account of Eli Lilly to spread false information about their products.

Eli Lilly had to respond with an apology message about the misinformation. We’re also seeing accounts impersonating well known personalities on the platform.

This is something that should be monitored. Some precautionary steps that can be taken to protect your organization or brand’s corporate reputation are:

• Create a post or include in your account bio a reminder that official company tweets only come from your account’s Twitter handle and that if the handle doesn’t match the Twitter account, it is not an official company account.
• Actively monitor social media platforms for accounts impersonating your organization and brands.
• Be ready with some reactive messaging that can be quickly deployed in case of an impersonation or misinformation being shared.
• Be extra cautious on information that your accounts retweet to ensure the source is legitimate and the information is correct, so as not to accidentally spread misinformation.