Look Before You Leap into a Twitter Hashtag

In the wake of the tragic and horrifying movie theatre shooting in Aurora, Colorado, Twitter is abuzz with mentions of support, bewilderment, grief, and shock.

Naturally, the hashtag #Aurora has proven quite popular. Leave it to a clothing retailer, Celeb Boutique, to take advantage of the trending topic, but for all the wrong reasons. Observe:

Needless to say, this isn’t exactly the Tweet of the year. It did however quickly inspire a major backlash against the clothing retailer. Check out some of the angry responses. 

Celeb Boutique has since deleted the tweet, and apologized profusely, claiming that they were not aware what the trending topic was regarding. What the folks at Celeb Boutique should have done was click on the trending topic to see what people were saying before jumping on the bandwagon. When you tweet something, it’s out there forever. Just because you delete it doesn’t mean it will disappear.

Clearly the company isn’t going to get a lot of sympathy, and has a very messy situation on its hands. This really illustrates how a tweet, regardless of its intent, can really make or break you. Just remember to look before you leap into a hashtag.