Social Media

Unintentionally Amusing Social Media Blunder Of The Week (So Far)

June 16, 2011, by TC 2 comments

It used to be you fired an agency because they didn’t perform or you didn’t like the brand of muffins they served in meetings or the creative director had a ponytail or some other worthwhile reason.

Nowadays, you simply wait for the inevitable social media gaffe (via Ad Age):

In this case, the blunder was a public declaration denouncing negative reviews of client 2K’s “Duke Nukem Forever” game.

The now-deleted tweet was captured by Wired in a screenshot of from @TheRednerGroup that read: “too many went too far with their reviews. We r reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn’t based on today’s venom.”

James Redner, who had worked with the company since 2009 on various projects and who had most recently handled media relations for the launch of “Duke Nukem Forever,” has apologized for his actions numerous times on Twitter. He told Ad Age, “I used a public forum to voice my complaints and I know better. I poured my soul into the project and when I read the review I felt like a father trying to protect his son. In hindsight, I should have approached the writer directly.”

Social media has so few checks and balances—at least compared to more traditional media channels—that a continuous stream of entertaining marketing gaffes is almost guaranteed (in an attempt to provide even a glimpse of useful “how-to” content, I’ll simply offer the words “Hootsuite Pro” here).

In this case, not only did the tweet suggest a little less than perfect grace under fire, it also made public the common (but commonly denied) practice of witholding pre-release products from reviewers based on prior unfavorable reviews.

Oops.

And we’re not even going to explore the social media equivalent of “drunk dialing,” where you find yourself pouring out your scabbed-over heart on Facebook or Twitter while under the influence. (Do they make those “can’t start the car” breathalyzers for smartphones too?)

Or the inevitable autocorrect fails, where your phone out-thinks you, depriving you of your self-respect but providing the rest of us with a dose of humor at your expense.

Frankly, I’m all for screwups like this; so little in the social media universe (or on TV) offers entertainment anywhere near this compelling, especially for free.

Do I smell a reality TV series? (I think I do…)

Keep writing (but tweet with care), Tom Chandler.

Facebook Caught Red-Handed Planting False Stories About Google In Media…

May 12, 2011, by TC 2 comments

It seems that social media giant Facebook — perhaps the least trustworthy of the social media giants — has been caught red-handed using a PR firm to plant wildly exaggerated stories about Google’s privacy violations (via the Daily Beast):

Somebody, it seems, hired Burson-Marsteller, a top public-relations firm, to pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers, urging them to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s privacy. Burton even offered to help an influential blogger write a Google-bashing op-ed, which it promised it could place in outlets like The Washington Post, Politico, and The Huffington Post.

The plot backfired when the blogger turned down Burson’s offer and posted the emails that Burson had sent him. It got worse when USA Today broke a story accusing Burson of spreading a “whisper campaign” about Google “on behalf of an unnamed client.”

But who was the mysterious unnamed client? While fingers pointed at Apple and Microsoft, The Daily Beast discovered that it’s a company nobody suspected—Facebook.

Dan Lyons’ piece makes for engrossing reading, and it’s a reminder that Facebook (and most of the other social media companies) trot out the warm puppy images when they’re talking user privacy, but in truth, they’re willing to do pretty much whatever they can get away with to win in the competitive social media space.

Users often seem blissfully unconcerned about privacy issues, though maybe this particular PR nightmare will coax a viable alternative into the open (like the much-hyped Diaspora), offering users and marketers a way to opt out of the madness.

Until then, you pretty much have to go where the crowds are, which means putting your faith in Facebook — something that’s pretty difficult to do given their actions the past several years.

I don’t do business with clients I can’t trust, and I’d rather not associate with companies I can’t believe.

Keep writing, Tom Chandler.

We Know All About Social Media's Strengths. What About Its Pitfalls?

February 2, 2010, by TC 4 comments

Social Media is the subject of a great deal of hype, though less-explored are its downsides.

These include employee oversharing, the need to “Feed the Monster” – and an increased risk of malware and spam attacks (the new social disease?).

From the Good Morning Silicon Valley site:

More businesses may be incorporating social networking into their internal and external communications, but that doesn’t mean the cranky guys back in the systems room are happy about it. A new report and survey of 500 companies by security outfit Sophos found a 70 percent increase last year in the number of firms reporting spam or malware attacks via social networks. Almost three quarters of the companies surveyed believed their employees’ behavior on social networking sites endangered security, and 61 percent named Facebook as their biggest worry among the social sites.

Obviously, every media channel has its pluses and minuses, and they need to be weighed against the potential benefits.

Outside of concerns about malware, I speak candidly with my consulting clients about the dangers of employee oversharing. Social media fanatics are often quick to call for transparency and unfettered employee access, but frankly, some folks shouldn’t be allowed near a Twitter client or a blog.

More than a decade ago, I gave a vendor direct access to my client. It was a tough project (an ad/show campaign), and to my horror, that vendor immediately got into a nasty email flame war with my key client contact.

By the time I found out, the damage was already done, and though I made amends, I (understandably) lost the client.

Oddly, I’d worked with that vendor for years, and their actions never suggested a tendency towards corporate suicide (with their clients or mine).

The moral here is that you can’t simply hand each everyone access to direct media channels like social media. The above exchange took place via email – but imagine if the flame war had taken shape on a Facebook page or even a blog – for all to see?

Too many social media projects begin on a seemingly ad hoc basis – lacking a plan or even a clear idea of the goals, means, and yes – potential pitfalls.

Keep your eyes open about the pitfalls, and you’re a lot less likely to have a bad, bad day.

Keep writing, Tom Chandler.

High Macintosh Prices (Finally) The Subject of Windows Ad Campaign (or, The Empire Strikes Back)

March 31, 2009, by TC 2 comments

What Will “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” Ads Look Like When Web Browsers Rule The World?

In adversity there is opportunity (at least that’s what the motivational types always say), and it’s remarkable how much adversity Microsoft’s endured before getting serious about its advertising.

The Mac vs PC marketing wars have tilted heavily in the direction of the Mac – due in large part to the funny (and effective) “Hi, I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” campaign rolled out by Apple, which has become the Officially Designated Satirical Format for almost every would-be-viral videomaker on YouTube.

After a fairly stringy “I’m a PC” campaign, Microsoft – apparently finally realizing the danger – launches on the Mac by riffing on the high cost of Apple’s products, a move guaranteed to enrage Mac Fanboys everywhere:

True or not, it’s nice to see that both sides are ratcheting up their marketing campaigns, which should prove amusing (for those of us who can still tear themselves away from Twitter long enough to watch).

Which oddly begs the next question (OK, I did write it):

How are Mac, PC & Linux going to differentiate themselves in the cloud computing era – when so much of what we do flows through nearly identical browsers largely indifferent to the OS?

Firefox looks pretty much the same no matter which platform you’re using. Same for most of the social media clients we use (and that’s true for Linux too, save the ongoing lack of a great blog editor).

After all, “Hi, I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC, and most of the time, you can’t tell us apart” doesn’t sound like the basis for a compelling ad campaign.

Will the playing field continue to tilt towards the Mac’s rich media/content creation goodness? Will Windows 7 rectify some of Vista’s worst shortcomings? Will the uber-affordable, high-performance Linux desktop distributions make any headway?

More importantly, what will the ad campaigns look like? What will the differentiators really look like? I’m dying to see.

And yes, I believe there’s ample opportunity for Linux to make marketing headway by leveraging its underdog status, and the utter lack of a financial model for marketing suggests the need for a fun, innovative social media campaign.

Frankly, that would be a fun campaign to write; when you’re on the bottom in terms of market share, you’ve got nothing to lose – which is when creatives should have the most fun.

Today’s Bonus Time Killers

As someone who bought a 128K Mac in 1985, switched to a PC in the 90s, and now use Linux, I’m clearly one of the true cranks of the desktop computing world, and feel compelled to include the Mac vs PC vs Linux version of Apple’s famous ad:

For Those Without Twitter Accounts to Distract You

We present fifteen Mac vs PC ads placed end to end:

Keep writing, Tom Chandler.