In what seemed like a fun gesture, the San Diego Padres changed their @Padres Twitter handle to @Madres to celebrate Mother’s Day.
Happy #Madres Day!
Today, we're celebrating Moms everywhere. #MothersDay #callyourmom pic.twitter.com/qthwB44fPB
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) May 12, 2019
That’s no big deal; changing a handle to a different one lets you retain your following, and it’s for a good cause. The one thing you should absolutely do, though, if you’re a professional team with 400,000 Twitter followers, is to make sure Twitter knows to lock down the original handle. Or even create a holding account for the @Padres handle, so you can easily switch back to it.
The Padres did not do that.
Shoutout to Ricky from East County, who appears to have landed the @Padres handle for today? Haha. pic.twitter.com/RvUF8syO7s
— brady phelps (@LobShots) May 12, 2019
Ricky managed to hold on for a few hours before the Padres switched back:
My handle changed back by @Padres still takes you to my profile… Sneaky @Madres
— Ricky Padilla (@RickyPadilla22) May 12, 2019
It’s tough to say where the breakdown was but this does seem like a logical set of assumptions:
The Padres strike up an advertising deal with Budweiser… clearly a pre-planned event for the @Madres handle switch. They reach out to Twitter and arrange the details. Fairly simple if Twitter agrees…
1) Make the switch
2) Freeze the original handle— brady phelps (@LobShots) May 12, 2019
The @Padres handle is now frozen, so it appears someone finally flipped the correct switch. But not before Ricky managed to have the @Padres handle for a few hours.
Ricky Padilla the ?
— Dave Guido (@Devoguido) May 12, 2019
whoever runs atPadres never had to go through the anxiety of changing tumblr usernames without giving up your old one and it shows
— kelly (on a rehab assignment) (@kellyawallace) May 12, 2019
So, now everything seems like it’s back in order, although there are still a few replies to @Padres that direct to Ricky’s account. It was a great example of one of the few purely fun things on Twitter: brands and/or celebrities having their plans foiled by random people.
