Weekly Comms News Round Up 14/11/2013

Another week, another social media storm!
Financial services firm JPMorgan is the latest company to spark controversy by pulling out of Twitter Q&A session in the wake of thousands of negative #AskJPM tweets. In other news, a photo messaging app, Snapchat, which has never made any profit, has reportedly rejected the biggest ever acquisition offer from Facebook. Read these and other comms news highlights from the past week. Stories curated via @CisionUK.

JPMorgan cancels Twitter Q&A after tirade of abuse by @danielt_johnson via The Telegraph
JPMorgan Chase has become the latest company to cancel a question and answer session on Twitter after it prompted a tirade of verbal abuse from thousands of people on the site. At least two-thirds of 80,000 tweets sent using the hashtag #AskJPM were negative, according to Topsy, which analyses Tweets.

One of the company’s senior bankers who worked on Twitter’s share sale, Jimmy Lee, had planned to take over JPMorgan’s Twitter page on Thursday in an online marketing event. But by yesterday afternoon due to the scale of the abuse the company cancelled the event, announcing: “Tomorrow’s Q&A is cancelled. Bad Idea. Back to the drawing board.”

BT beats Sky to European football in £900m deal by @MaisieMcCabe via Campaign
BT has outbid ITV and BSkyB to win the exclusive live broadcast rights for all the 350 matches in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League for three years from 2015/16.

BT has committed to paying £299 million a year for the games, understood to be double what ITV and Sky combined pay at the moment, and will become the first broadcaster to have exclusive rights for all matches across both tournaments. Each season, BT Sport will broadcast some games free, even to homes that have not subscribed to the service. The free games will include the finals and at least one game from all the participating British teams in the tournament.

Snapchat rejects $3bn Facebook buyout by @dominicru via The Guardian
Snapchat, the fast-growing messaging system, has reportedly rejected a $3bn buyout offer from Facebook.

The Wall Street Journal, citing sources close to the negotiations, said the all-cash offer came as other investors were valuing the loss making two-year-old company at over $4bn. At $3bn Snapchat would be the most expensive acquisition Facebook has ever made.

Twitter opens its advertising doors to small businesses in the UK, Ireland and Canada by @kaylenehong via The Next Web
Twitter today announced that small- and medium-sized businesses in the UK, Ireland and Canada will now be able to make use of its self-serve advertising platform. Twitter’s suite of ad products include Promoted Tweets, Promoted Accounts, and Promoted Trends. 

All a small business owner needs is a Twitter account and a credit card to start advertising. Notably, Twitter says it will only charge when people follow your Promoted Account or retweet, reply, favorite or click on your Promoted Tweets, and never for organic Twitter activity.

Kelloggs in double apology after Twitter gaffe by @MrStevenRaeburn via The Drum
Cereal brand Kelloggs has issued two apologies via Twitter for what it acknowledged was a ‘distasteful’ prior tweet promoting its Give a Child a Breakfast campaign.

The brand tweeted: ‘1 RT = 1 breakfast for a vulnerable child’ from its @KelloggsUK account to over 19,000 followers. The tweet, which has since been deleted, drew a barrage of criticism from many of the company’s followers, who perceived the tweet as implying that the campaign was conditional upon receiving sufficient support.