(Newswire.net – April 23, 2013) Kansas City, KS — It’s no secret that we live in a world of evolving media, where social media has begun to take the forefront for breaking news. So it’s no surprise that when a respected organization such as the Associated Press tweeted on Tuesday, “Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured,” that in less than a minute more than $200 billion dollars plummeted out of the stock market. The initial tweet was sent at 1:07PM EST, when the DOW sat at 14,697.79, and by 1:09PM EST it had plummeted over 130 points to 14,566.94.
One minute later, Sam Hananel, who writes for the AP, tweeted: “Please Ignore AP Tweet on explosions, we’ve been hacked.” And by 1:12, the DOW was back up to 14,690.58, just 7 points down from where it sat before the tweet. It would go on to close up 152 points.
Justin West, who is the founder and CEO of a local marketing agency near Kansas City that specializes in social media marketing shared these thoughts: “We are always on. Always. The speed at which the world is turning now is astounding. And so sometimes, errors happen. It happened last week with the Boston bombing suspects early on, before they actually knew who was to blame. And it happened when the APs twitter account is compromised.”
Mr. West said that in the new marketing economy, reputation is key. “People trust the social media outlets of organizations that have a good reputation; who have shown themselves to be trustworthy in the past. They take what they say as Gospel without waiting for confirmation and they simply run with it. It can be dangerous.” Mr. West’s company, www.HundredsOfCustomers.com, tweets under the name @100sOfCustomers.
For the time being, the DOW is again relatively stable, but only time will tell if this problem will persist, and what steps can or should be taken to remedy the situation.