This is the course blog for an upper-level class on Social Media and Public Relations taught at St. Edward's University. In this course, we explore emerging social media technologies and study their application in contemporary PR practice.
I just made it home from work yesterday right before a brief but vicious hail storm descended upon Austin. After checking the radar on TV and realizing I'd probably be fine, I turned to the important things in life - checking my Twitter feeds. And there I saw this:
Must be a hail storm in Texas right now. Mighty Twitter knows all.
Nothing too unusual considering the speed with which messages get spread through Twitter. Except that in this case, the tweeter was @pphilp and lives in Canada. It took me a second to realize that the hail storm must be a trending topic on Twitter and lo and behold it was:
How can an event this localized dominate the Twitterverse so easily? A number of possibilities come to mind: either yesterday was a very slow "news day" for Twitter, or there is a disproportionate amount of Twitter users living in Austin. Or maybe it's a combination of both? TwitterGrader does support the idea that Austinites might be particularly prone to tweeting - it lists the city among the top 10 Twitter cities. Maybe the tweets around events in Austin are more likely to make the trending list because there are simply a lot of Twitter users in Austin? Think about the power that gives Austinites and other tweeters from Twitter-friendly cities in terms of setting the agenda for what other Internet users hear and think about.
Whatever it may be, here's an example of an event that didn't make it past the local news in the traditional media (at least I'm not aware of any of the major networks running a story on the Austin hail storm, let alone the international media). Yet, Twitter spread the news of this localized event all the way to other countries - and all of that pretty much in real time.
Last week we concluded our discussion of online monitoring by building a Yahoo Pipe designed to capture conversations about SXSW. Considering all the excitement SXSW generated, I'm assuming the pipe we built kept your RSS reader busy over spring break! For those of you who weren't in class, I have embedded the slideshow/tutorial on how to build this pipe below. You don't necessarily need to monitor the same keywords (SXSW and southbysouthwest in our class example) - just use any tags/names/keywords you are interested in monitoring.
You may also want to read Brian Solis' new post on Social Customer Relationship Management with regard to the need to listen in on online conversations. Yahoo pipes offer a very basic, yet easy way to do what Solis is describing here:
Listening to the dialog related to specific keywords within every community, initially, will help us define and chart an accurate social map that pinpoints the exact communities that require our attention, the volume and frequency of relevant conversations, and the tonality and reach of those conversations within their respective networks.
I just found a fun new way to grade your blog posts. Here's the deal: First, I'll run your blog URL through the MoneyPath Bailout Calculator (via @BarbaraNixon). Then I'll rank order your blogs based on the bailout money you received and assign a corresponding grade...
Good talk by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams on how Twitter evolved from the original idea of letting people share moments of their lives into something a lot more complex. Williams contends that although Twitter was initially designed as a broadcast medium, it's the users that ended up shaping the system into what it is today. Some of Twitter's current uses go far beyond the original idea of allowing people to stay connected and were completely unanticipated according to Williams.
I think that's one of the reasons many people have a hard time "getting" Twitter. Twitter is many things and continues to evolve in directions that are hard to anticipate - even by its co-founder. The ever-changing nature of Twitter means that we need to stay open to its many possibilities and that we can't just categorize it one way. It's another good example of what I talked about last week in a short guest post on the PRSA ComPRehension blog: the danger of static views of social media technologies. It's difficult to summarize what Twitter is all about. Imagine having to do so in true Twitter fashion: in 140 characters or less. I don't think I could do it. Could you? ABC tried to explain Twitter last week and they did a nice job but it took them 7 minutes to do so!
One other thing worth pointing out in this talk is the demonstration of Twitter as a backchanneling tool for presenters. We've seen it with Sarah Lacy's interview of Marc Zuckerberg at SXSW last year and we saw it again last night at the Texas Public Relations Association (TPRA) awards when comedian Sherry Belle offended her audience and was castigated in real-time on Twitter.
Here's a summary of a study I discussed in my Interpersonal Communication class last week. The study examined the question of whether or not our Facebook friends influence the way other people perceive us online. The findings indicate that on social networking sites, our friends may indeed participate in the construction of our online identities. In other words, we're not solely in control of constructing these identities anylonger. A fact which a lot of companies have had to come to terms with over the course of the past few years - especially with regards to accepting that they're not solely in control of their brands' idenitities anylonger.
Reference: Walther, J. B., Van Der Heide, B., Kim, S. Y., Westerman, D., & Tong, S. T. (2008). The Role of Friends’ Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep?Human Communication Research, 34 (1), 28-49.
I seem to be blogging about Terms of Service changes lately (see LMT post below). This time it's Facebook that's drawing criticism for changing its TOS. Check out this post from the Consumerist for the full story (via das Textdepot). Here's an excerpt from a Facebook reps' interpretation of the new TOS:
That is, if you send a message to another user (or post to their wall, etc...), that content might not be removed by Facebook if you delete your account (but can be deleted by your friend).
Last week LastMinuteTravel.com, a website specializing in discount hotel and air fares, launched a tantalizing online promotion dubbed the "World For $1 Sale". In order to introduce people to the revamped website, the company (LMT) promised to run a 15 minute booking window each day (from January 26th - February 6th) during which site users could book a room in any of their 15,000 hotels for $1 a night. The catch? Users would have to decipher a series of clues in order to determine when those 15 minutes would occur.
The campaign went off without any major glitches the first two days, but as the promotion gained steam (it received coverage by several major media outlets: CNN, CNBC), the initial excitement soon turned to frustration and outright anger due to a number of seemingly avoidable problems such as:
Improperly timed email messages: After keeping everyone glued to their computers all day on Thursday, LMT sent out an email at 10 p.m. CST reading "You didn't miss your chance today because the sale hasn't happened yet" only to retract that email 2 hours later.
Ever-changing terms of service agreements: Thus far the TOS have changed 3 times, each time getting longer and specifying new restrictions. Another piece of confusion: Although the sale states that winners will pay $1 per day, they are actually charged $0. This raises questions of whether or not to consider the promotion a sale or a contest (and carries important tax repercussions).
Banning of auto-refresh and auto-fill browser plug-ins: As of yesterday the company has banned the use of auto-refresh plug-ins that keep reloading the page (i.e. check4changes, changeEvery). Note from LMT: "The World for a $1 Campaign was designed to give an equal opportunity to all individuals to make a booking during the Campaign, and therefore, the success of the Campaign requires that we forbid the use of automated devices and/or software. You may attempt to make a booking the “old-fashioned” way – by watching our videos that contain hints, logging onto the site, and checking the clock." These plug-ins were not banned earlier in the competition and the TOS were changed yesterday to add this new restrictions. Funny side-note: the LMT clue videos show computers auto-refreshing the hotels page while the video protagonists are asleep or have their hands tied to the bed.
Punishing crowds for pooling resources in a chatroom: In true Web2.0 fashion, Internet users started pooling resources by creating a forum to discuss clues, provide support to one another while waiting for hours, and most recently launching what may be the world's firstsilent chatroom meant to alert people when the sale came on. At the height of the wait last night, the chatroom hosted about 2,000 anxious Internet users. It seems LMT responded by randomly opening booking windows for individual users, rather than opening the sale to everyone at the same time.
Chopped up time segments: Rather than running 15 minute booking windows, the company has been running two 7.5 minute or three 5 minute windows. To complete the booking they also made users watch several promotional videos thereby complicating users' ability to complete the booking. (See forum for discussion of other allegations such as timers counting down to zero much faster than they should, videos looping endlessly, etc.)
Contradictory clues: One clue read: "Knowing when NOT to look, is as important as knowing when. Monday-Friday, The World for $1 will only happen between specific hours. While Kevin and Janice sleep in their Manhattan apartment, you need not worry about missing your chance." The video showed the couple sleeping from 11:52pm to 6:02am (EST), yet on day 3 and 5, the sale ran during the wee hours of the morning)
Limited hotel inventory during the sale period: Internet users trying to book hotels during the sale have reported only limited availabilities - especially with regard to 4 and 5 star hotels which are said to disappear during the sale.
Internet users who sat in front of their computers for hours on end yesterday reacted less than favorably to these change of terms and technical problems and have created a PR nightmare for LMT. Should the company have seen this coming? Absolutely. If people can trample a Wal-Mart worker for a sale on an $800 plasma TV , it's not that difficult to imagine how involved an excited Internet crowd can get in a sale that promises a 7-day resort vacation for $1.
I think that's exactly where LMT went wrong. I know web promotions are a big thing right now, but unless you have thoroughly thought this through, you shouldn't launch such an ambitious campaign. And there's plenty of reasons that lead me to believe that the company didn't think this through very well:
They launched a blog and a Facebook page 2 days after the sale had started, seemingly as an afterthought. Although the blog has comments enabled and plenty of upset website users have left comments, the company has yet to respond to any of them. Seems like a blog without a blogging strategy. One-way communication instead of dialog. Gil, who runs the blog sums it up nicely: I'm "actually not a blogger but rather a viral advertiser"
They clearly didn't anticipate the amount of users who would rush to their website at the same time and overwhelm their servers. You simply can't run such a promotion without having the technology side of it all figured out.
Changing the TOS several times suggests that they really hadn't put much thought into the first version. In this age of mass collaboration, is it really that difficult to fathom that Internet users would get organized and collaborate on this project? Maybe the authors of this campaign should read up on some Web 2.0 literature?
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