It’s hard to blame wholesome British baking company Warburton’s for not being familiar with furries, an online community of people who enjoy dressing up as anthropomorphic cartoon animals.
Nonetheless, Warburtons’ holiday Instagram hashtag #CrumpetCreations, meant to highlight tasty recipes made by their followers using their brand’s famous crumpets, inadvertently hijacked a hashtag used within the furry community. This caused anyone looking for Warburton’s user-submitted crumpet content to be plunged into the world of furries.
While this wasn’t entirely their fault, even a few minutes’ research on their chosen hashtag could have avoided this awkward Instagram marketing mistake. So, before you launch your next hashtag campaign, don’t be like Warburton’s—just take a quick look and see if the tag is already being used by an internet fandom of people who like to dress up in cartoon animal costumes.
Fane of Apocrypha 