I can't believe I missed seeing this on twitter. But I'm not sure I agree with the article's conclusions. The author writes, "As bad as it seemed, the fallout won’t be severe—just a week or so of mass embarrassment and a lifelong cautionary tale for PR pros, marketers, and social media gurus everywhere." I think the fall-out could be substantially longer term.
Yes, because people care about Burger King's twitter account in a way that is meaningful to their bottom line. I think it'll probably help them, if anything. In a roundabout, unintentional way, Burger King got the attention of a wide audience that largely ignores them. I'm going to go eat a Whopper.
I think what shocked me is that this happened to begin with, and that it wasn't shut down immediately. Point #2 would have come in very handy, had they had a plan in place.
"Change your passwords regularly." Does it really makes sense? Even if I use keepass to randomly generate a giant password to each different account I have? I don't understand why I'll be more secure if I change my passwords regularly.