There’s a long-standing myth that Hostess® Twinkies™ have an indefinite shelf life. No one is sure when or where this urban legend originated, but many of us have heard that Twinkies will last 10 years without going stale. A number of articlesand interviews with Hostess representatives assert that a Twinkie’s actual shelf life is about 25 days.
Endangered? Not yet!
Yesterday, a rumor that Twinkies will go out of production appeared online following news that Hostess plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week. For now, this just means they will be restructuring finances, but some Twitter users went straight into panic mode, lamenting the tragic loss of the snack cakes.
While the presence of the internet means that news, and rumors, travel very quickly, it also means that companies can easily communicate one-on-one to dispel them. Hostess is using its Twitter handle to respond to individual tweets on the subject, reassuring fans that Twinkies will remain in production “for the foreseeable future.”
This is just another example of how the digital age affects all businesses. Are you using online media to communicate with your customers?
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