British furniture retailer Habitat has apologized for exploiting the Iran conflict in an attempt to promote its Twitter feed. The company came under fire after it began using keywords related to the current conflict in its tweets, which otherwise had nothing to do with the subject. This is referred to as hashtag spam and is widely frowned upon by Twitter users. The company also used other high trending keywords such as #Apple and #iPhone.

          Sky News Online has reported a Habitat spokesman as saying: “This was a mistake and it is important to us that we always listen, take on board observations and welcome constructive criticism. We will do our utmost to ensure any mistakes are never repeated.”

The company has not issued an apology on Twitter but did quietly delete all the spam tweets it posted. It’s not clear why they felt hashtag spamming was okay to do, although they told a blog that it was done without their knowledge. That sounds a little hard to believe but it wouldn’t be the first time a rouge employee was blamed for a blunder that became a PR nightmare.

The moral of the story? Twitter can be a valuable tool to help you reach out to customers and potential customers, but tread carefully and follow the rules. Spam is no more acceptable there than it is anywhere else.