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Unless you’ve spent the past several months living in a hermitage nestled deep within the forests of Appalachia, you’ve probably heard about the torrents of crude oil that are currently pouring into the Gulf of Mexico and bathing aquatic flora and fauna alike in viscous, black sludge. Yes, the good people at “Beyond Petroleum” have the misfortune of being responsible for an environmental disaster of epic proportions; however, even more unfortunate—from their perspective—is the fact that BP is faced with a massive public relations nightmare from which the company may never recover.

One of the most salient manifestations of BP’s current PR difficulties is the parodic Twitter feed of a certain Leroy Stick. The gentleman in question, who explains his nom de Twitter in a short autobiography, is evidently pretty upset with what’s happening off the coast of Louisiana. Thankfully, he’s decided to translate that angry frustration into a delightfully clever send-up of British Petroleum’s public relations department (I should note that humor is not the only goal of this Twitter account, which has also raised thousands of dollars to be spent on cleaning up the oil spill).

Of course, since no good joke ever goes unpunished, Mr. Stick was recently advised by Twitter that an anonymous oil company had complained about his feed—the company in question clearly must believe that most people are credulous and incapable of understanding farce. I would say that Tony Hayward et al. are not giving the public enough credit, but this isn’t the first time that a satire has been mistaken for an earnest presentation of facts.

The aforementioned @BPGlobalPR predicament does indeed remind me of a similar set of circumstances from quite a number of years ago. This is Spinal Tap, the groundbreaking 1984 “mockumentary” about a fictitious English heavy metal band, introduced Americans to the musical stylings and bizarre, idiosyncratic behavior of David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel and Derek Smalls—a.k.a. Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer, respectively. These remarkably talented actors / comedians / musicians managed to convince a significant number of people that Spinal Tap, purportedly England’s loudest band, was a legitimate musical outfit. It’s not completely surprising that some viewers were duped, given the fact that Tap’s comedic source material consists primarily of stories (whether apocryphal or not) about actual rock bands of the day. At any rate, kudos is due to Leroy Stick for pulling off a similarly deceptive feat in the Twitterverse.

The conflict between BP and Mr. Stick is a perfect example of the power, for good or ill, of Twitter and other popular social media sites. As I’m writing this, @BPGlobalPR has 181,433 followers, which is no mean amount. Au contraire, the numbers (and BP’s reaction to the content) show that one can reach and transmit any message to a huge audience at almost no cost through Twitter and similar media. Such is the viral, meme-centric nature of both professional and public life these days—just ask Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

I’m not saying that you should obtain Facebook and Twitter accounts just to toss out witticisms via status updates and tweets; however, your business would definitely benefit from establishing a presence on the scene in each one of these media. After all, there’s no better way to show that you’re thought leaders in your field than by being directly involved in the conversation. Of course, there is also the added benefit of being able to swap Spinal Tap quotations with customers and clients to showcase your fine taste in film and well-developed sense of humor.