All companies, whether they are active in social media or not, should secure the online names that could be used to protect or promote their brand. Unfortunately for Netflix, the company is learning this lesson the hard way. As many of you know, Netflix recently announced the separation of its online streaming and mail-order DVD services. This week, CEO Reed Hastings shared in a blog post that the DVD service will now be known as Qwikster - a name chosen because it “refers to quick delivery.” But Netflix seems to have forgotten to secure the Twitter address of its new service. A guy whose name is listed as Jason Castillo has been tweeting from @Qwikster for months. And get this - his profile picture is a cartoon Elmo smoking a joint, and his tweets are filled with foul language and drug references. As said best by The Washington Post, “Hardly the first brand association that a company would like to make, and a major failure on the PR front.” Yikes. TechCrunch was the first to discover this PR blunder, observing that “The first thing many tech pundits do upon hearing industry news is check a prominent brand’s Twitter account to see if [...]
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