Mike Andrew Consulting

Twitter stalks the wrong Alan Joyce

By mike, Oct 31 in blog with 0 comments

Qantas is the talk of the town on social networking sites after CEO Alan Joyce took the unprecedented step of grounding the airline’s domestic and international aircraft.

Twitter account holders have been looking for the businessman’s personal account, taking the search for Alan Joyce to the fourth most popular trend topic in Australia on Sunday.

Unfortunately, many homed in on an Alan Joyce of Stanford, California.

The American Mr Joyce acquired more than 300 extra Twitter followers over the past 24 hours after tweeters confused him with the Qantas boss.

‘Oh dear,’ he tweeted around 11am AEDT on Sunday.

‘I think Australia is waking up again … time to prepare for another deluge of tweets.’

Mr Joyce later tweeted that Qantas had contacted him ‘with a graceful apology’, which could indicate not all his new followers were friendly.

Also making an appearance on Twitter was a fake Alan Joyce, whose account described the tweeter as ‘leading Qantas Airway to its biggest disaster yet and then on to the next’.

The fake Joyce was quickly acquiring followers, up from about 300 on Saturday evening to almost 2000 on Sunday afternoon, as he racked up more than 470 tweets.

Qantas itself was also a major topic on Twitter, with many tweeters expressing their disappointment with the airline’s action.

Among them was NSW federal Labor MP Mike Kelly, who tweeted his followers: ‘Finding it increasingly difficult 2 accept credibility of Alan Joyce. Worried we will see the flying roo give way 2 the flying pig emblem.’

About the author

Mike Andrew has been working with the Internet and small business for over 12 years. Mike has been a keynote speaker at conventions and seminars and conducted social media training sessions all over the world. Mike has an extensive media background having worked in electronic media for over 30 years. Mike specialises in social media and Internet marketing strategy, SEO techniques and search engine marketing campaigns. His articles appear on numerous blogs around the web as well as national magazines.