January 31, 2013 15:04

HMV employee who hijacked official Twitter account speaks out

Critical messages posted from official HMV account following loss of 60 jobs

Photo: PA

*This story was updated on Friday, February 1*

An employee of HMV who hijacked HMV's Twitter account following the "mass firing" of 60 employees yesterday has revealed her identity (January 31).

Poppy Rose Cleere, who was HMV’s social media planner, revealed that she felt senior members of staff at HMV “never seemed to grasp” how important social media was in building links between themselves and customers.
“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,” she wrote on her own personal Twitter account. She later added: "I wanted to show the power of Social Media to those who refused to be educated."

As seen in the screengrabs below, the disgruntled former employee who posted the messages criticised the company for getting rid of people who wanted to help secure the long term future of the company, which entered administration earlier this year. "There are over 60 of us being fired at once! Mass execution of loyal employees who love the brand," reads one message. Another states: "Under normal circumstances we'd never dare do such a thing as this."

Those in the meeting who had not been fired soon caught on to what was happening online with one tweet, which survived just a matter of seconds, reading: "Just overheard our Marketing Director (he's staying, folks) ask 'How do I shut down Twitter?'"

It is not known who sent the messages but all seven messages have now been deleted from the HMV account. The account has over 66,000 followers and its most recent post is now a message about their Blue Cross sale, which offers 25% off the marked price on thousands of products.

It was recently reported that a consortium of major music labels and film studios are reportedly assembling a rescue package to save HMV from going out of business.

Scroll down to see the tweets sent during the brief hijack earlier today:

The world's greatest music magazine is now available as a digital edition! For exclusive content you won't find on NME.COM, download here on your iPad/iPhone and here on your Kindle Fire or Nook.

Share on Facebook