BP lost an opportunity on social media platform Twitter to micromanage the Gulf Oil Spill crisis, and in turn gave rise to a new Twitter star.

The satirical twitter account BPGlobalPR was set up when the BP oil spill started making headlines, and has amassed a huge following.
There are currently 165,000 followers compared to BP's actual corporate <BP_America > account with just under 15,000 followers.

This really illustrates the point about how businesses need to be proactive when it comes to the new social media. There are some great lessons to be learned here for us all.

Social Media such as Twitter now levels the media playing field. Ashton Kutcher showed us that with his race to one million follows a year or so ago when he took on CNN. His point was exactly that - to show that one person can have as much pull in this new media outlet as an entire traditional media network.

Now Ashton Kutcher talks to over 8 million people (with Facebook included).

What BPGlobalPR is showing here is a remarkable awareness for guerilla marketing. They have taken a serious topic and put it out there in a creative way at little or no expense, whilst the corporate responsible for the mess in the first place is spending milions on protecting it's under fire brand. BPTerry has been interviewed all over the show, and been able to get his point across with validity. They are undermining the credibility of the real PR effort on behalf of BP and are steamrolling through the blogsphere. Yes indeed, it is amazing what one twitter account, and a great sense of humour can achieve.
They are also selling T-Shirts and donating the after expenses profits to a charity set up to help clean up the gulf. Clever.

Who is BPGlobalPR?

The guy behind this all is calling himself Terry.
Terry claims he works in the PR department of BP America and his job is one of distraction. His overpaid role is to distract everyone with this satirical account of what BP is doing in order to take the heat away from the company as it continually gets slammed.

Some of the classic Tweets from Terry:

If you want to help clean up. Drive your cars fast and often. Let's melt those glaciers and dilute this mess!

The good news: Mermaids are real. The bad news: They are now extinct.

Obama wants us to start a liability account to pay spill victims. We'd rather not, but thanks for asking!

We are not killing animals in the gulf, we are creating fossils in the gulf. Have a little perspective!

Investing a lot of time & money into cleaning up our image, but the beaches are next on the to-do list for sure

Wait, Oil PLUMES? We thought you asked about oil PLUMS in the ocean. How silly! Yes, yes, there are TONS of oil plumes!

Proud to announce we've partnered with Google to turn the Information Superhighway into a Corporate Bus Route

Try our cap operation at home! Hold a funnel over a firehose, sell what you catch and proclaim victory!

We take this situation very seriously, which is why tonight's oil wrestling event will be followed by a candle light vigil.

Safety is our primary concern. Well, profits, then safety. Oh, no- profits, image, then safety, but still- it's right up there.

ATTENTION BP EMPLOYEES: Please put a name and a date on any food you put in the office fridge. It's getting gross in there.

So YOU want to see pictures of dead animals covered in oil and WE are the bad guys!? Sick bastards.

Free bp Sunday! Come in to any bp to get free hugs, handshakes and matches! Remember to say "thanks bp!" and take a picture!

Of course, bp cares about the fishing industry as well. Now, all tuna from the gulf coast comes pre-packaged in oil.

We just saw a shark fight an octopus inside the geyser. Almost made this whole thing worth it.

You can watch a real funny youtube clip of BP Terry giving an interview to American News Channel ABC here: < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU6vYpWgOvM > Could not embed it as this feature is turned off. Why is that perhaps.....

Here is also a link to the real story behind Terry. It is a great read.
< http://streetgiant.com/2010/06/02/leroy-stick-the-man-behind-bpglobalpr/ >