Young people are absolutely marvellous. All that Tinder swiping and moaning about house prices. Particularly endearing is their total refusal to read newspapers, or to see why that might be a hindrance if you are trying to pitch stories to newspapers.
They’re nifty with technology though, everyone knows that, which is why when a company decides to beef up its social media presence, it always asks someone born no later than 2001.
A few years ago a major newspaper hired one such Twitter “expert”. They knew he was an expert because he had a lot of followers.
After six months of totally pointless activity which generated neither readers nor revenues, someone bothered to check who these followers were. Nearly all of them were Russian hookers. Some were from Albania.
Last week, an old style City broking firm decided it needed to get into this Twitter thing and asked a young person, who knew how to tweet but not how to spell.
The broker, I’ll spare its blushes, found itself asking clients if they were “looking to incest ethically”.
If so, would they like the chance to come and meet their Chief Incestment Officer?
An old person intervened and the tweets were removed. The following advice was offered: give it a read through first, eh?
