A big apology to the 12,000 socially engaged moms subjected to an April fool’s joke in poor taste
My name is John Cataldi, I am considered by many to me an authority on social media targeting, engagement, privacy, and on occasion social media edicate. I could blame my lapse of good judgment on a 16 hour work day, my belief that everyone shared my “office space” like humor, or a suggestion by a coworker on themes for a quick and funny April fool’s joke, fueled by social media. Though in hindsight, I can give no excuse for my lack of common sense for socially sending, by my estimate, 12,000 moms into a potential panic that nose picking or ingesting mucus could be linked to brain damage.
At approximately 3am EST, on April 1st, I had the epiphany to create a social media joke in about an hour. My caffeinated brain researched the subject of top April fools jokes, and I discovered that women were more susceptible to than their male counterparts. Looking at social trends and influencers within the female gender in association with lifestyle, first time to 30 something moms seemed to be the best grouping with viral potential. So I entitled a press release, completely as a farce, with no malice or intent whatsoever to do harm to anyone, “Child Nose Picking Linked to Brain Damage”, supported by such medical authorities as:
1.Dr. Derek Zoolander, Author of Bad Habits Make Bad Children and founder of the Center of Kids Who Can't Read Good
2.Dr. Carnero Attero – Latin for Cow Poop
3.The National Center of Scientific Data, Surveillance, Health Statistics (NCSDSHS) – Completely made that agency up
4.And a scary disease name, Early Onset Pediatric Rhinotillexomania Psychosis (EOPRP)
Using a home grown social media targeting engine and a semi-automated social engagement process, I targeted over 12,000 moms on 12 mommy based blogs, 210 mommy influencers, across 5 social networks. A random message generator engaged the moms as individuals and gave the appearance, and re-syndicated content from mom influencers increased target moms into engaged followers.
Regardless of the gaping holes within the content at face value, I mixed a lot of medical fact with fiction. So, the concept, unless you tried the validate any of the subject matter, was real enough to many to cause a mommy panic, and call the toll free 800 Nose Picking Hotline. Now moms, that were once panicked have, now becomeperturbed after hearing a prerecorded message the this is a April Fool’s joke, followed by the history of nose picking.
The net result, I have over 11,984 visited the article content, 45 moms called our pre-recorded hotline, and 12 moms referencing that I was a very bad man, though I am paraphrasing, 2 moms going into more detail while crying, all between the hours of 4-7am EST when the campaign began to pick up followers. I spent the better part of April fools morning, deleting the pranks social efectiness, recalling press releases, re-search engine optimizing bad content links, so that there is very little if any trace of this very bad prank left on the internet other than my own admittance that it occurred, with the exception of those that it may have affected.
For all moms affected by my stupidity:
1)I am truly sorry, I am a donkey ass.
2)As a father of two, I should have known better, if my wife had read the article, I am almost certain she would have called in, discovered it was a prank, and then hunted me down.
3)Please refer to point 1 again.
For social media marketers:
1)Don’t be a donkey ass
2)Think before you push a joke, taunt, or statement into the social space, because it could come back and haunt you.
3)Think, plan, bounce off social campaigns off of your target audience to see if your messaging has the desired effect.
I learned a valuable lesson from this experience and hopefully providing a good example to others of what not to do in social media. Take heed, not even witness protection could help you if you socially insult an army of moms.
Money can’t buy love, but it can buy you millions of guaranteed friends to support your politics, purchases, or personal pursuits.
I just generated over 100,000 friends, followers, and fans for 4 separate clients over the past 96 hours! The catch phrase immortalized by the Beatles “Money can’t buy me love”, has been repeated as the golden rule of relationships for decades by hopeful hearts and probably poor romantic novelists has now been proven a farce. What seemly separates social friend fishing as opposed to true personal interaction is the message relevance and method of continual, hierarchical engagement. The expected end result is not to collect friends, followers, and fans, but to create an army of like minded individuals that can be lead to a specific action. Whether that action is one of capitalism or cause, integrated socialization into any media campaign can create exponential results.
The idea of pay-per-friend came from my initial pay-per-call platform I built years ago, in which you only paid for qualified client calls generated from our advertising. Unlike pay-per-friend, pay per call is a one shot, one kill deal, when a call comes in the advertiser answers, the interaction is now over. Referral potential from a call in client is low. In a pay-per-friend model, targeted friend is engaged, we continue to feed the target client relevant interaction, which create additional interaction with the target friends circle of influence, thus semi-viral fellowship begins to grow exponentially.
Pay-Per-Friend campaign basic steps – minus social technology details
Step 0: Start with the end in mind – simply put, in a perfect world what is the end result? Do you want 10,000 calls into the governor’s office? Change the perception of consumer confidence in a specific product or brand? Or promote your stock to those most likely to buy? All is possible, but the goals need to be set ahead of time.
Step 1: Set the stage / Client targeting via digital listening – this means selectively harvesting followership by listening to the interactions within the social sphere and create immediate engagement based upon the relevance of the conversation which compliments a per determined position.
Step 2: Socially class engaged as a leader or lemming – simply stated, does the engaged follower have their own following. Dependent upon the influence of the engaged participant, semi-automated to personal social interaction may be the best course of action, as opposed to the lemmings that will follow and syndicate a social conversation just to be a part of the group, cause, or conversation.
Step 3: Cross connect social, mobile, and traditional media platforms – Create tasks that help identify your social army, and allow you as the brand, advertiser, or agency to connect those identified as influencers to cross pollinate to other social mediums. The easiest way this can be achieved is to give influencers access to social, mobile, and ad mob tools to elevate their influence status.
Step 4: Seed social action and let leadership take form – plant a single seed in the mind of an individual, and potentially change the world. Carefully crafted and timely interactions will yield a predictive result. Those of social influence will lead an army of followers to an end action. Dependent upon the levels of influence of your social sphere, interactions can range from syndicated to highly personal.
Step 5: Create a rewards system – rewards can be a powerful motional tool, but like any compensation, the expectation must meet reality. Doesn’t promise and not deliver, or you will create a viral Acoup d'état.
Step 6: Measure the social success, optimize and repeat– from step 0 to now, friends were engaged, mobilization occurred, and most likely new opportunities emerged.
Step 7: RECYCLE– Just because you won the war, does not mean you throw your army away!
Digital Social Listening Detects a Global Attack of One of the Webs Largest Software Sites!
Reports began coming in September 14th that TuCow’s (AMEX: TCX) may have been affected via Ad Malware from blog sphere reports as detected by Adreka, Inc, using social digital listing tools. Tucows (originally an acronym for The Ultimate Collection of Winsock Software, a name which has long since been dropped) has been is one of the few companies that survived the destruction of the dot bombs, only to now fall victim to a new enemy, 3rd party malware, which their systems are, at this moment, currently distributing, possibly either undetected or not being discussed by their management given their publicly traded status. At this hour, the company has not made any statements, shutdown their Ad Servers, or hosting network.
Compounding the danger, TwoCows is perhaps best known for its popular website directory of shareware, freeware, and demo software packages available to download. A system of mirror sites is maintained to allow the traffic to the site to be distributed among several worldwide server locations. The 3rdparty Malware may have effected it’s an extensive reseller network, which services over ten million domain names, millions of mailboxes for a network of over 10,000 web hosts, ISPs (Internet Service Providers), and other resellers around the world. It can only be speculated that in the past 48 hours, TuCows, may have inadvertently infected millions of computers of Windows visitors to their software, email, and associated websites though a vendibility exploited via a 3rd party advert being served across TuCow’s entire network. The exploit will download and run a malicious file, a variant of the Bredolab Trojan. Upon execution it will unpack its code and try to connect to various remote addresses through the HTTP protocol for downloading and executing other Trojans, which results in a pop up frenzy of advertisements then usually fake antivirus or antispyware scanners (like PC Antispyware 2010). This potentially leads to a second problem of potential credit card fraud.
This is not the first time we see a high-traffic website being used to distribute malware. The bad guys always go for Achilles’ heel, and what looks like an innocuous advert can trigger a wave of nasties. This is why for networks big and small, third-party advertisements must be verified carefully, otherwise this is the kind of things that can happen. Though the lack of response, admittance, or lack of actions on behalf of TuCow’s is very unsettling. As of this evening TuCow’s systems still remain affected with the Malware spreading, and TuCow’s traffic base is exponentially decreasing as virus scanners and web browsers begins to alert web traffic of the potential danager. As a publicly traded company, news travels from the social sphere, to consumers, to Wall Street fast than most think.
Positive Online Popularity Grows for the King of Pop by 3000%
Singer-Songwriter, choreographer, producer, businessman and philanthropist, Michael Jackson was undoubtedly the “King of Pop”, with the height of his popularity spanning over 3 generations, and through social media, a fourth generation is now re-discovering this now resting entertainment giant.
Jackson’s mega-stardom that began from childhood was over shadowed by decades of mounting controversy that started in the 1980s. His flamboyant lifestyle, radical changes in physical appearance, allegations of sexual misconduct, questionable mental state, drug abuse, and deteriorating financial condition pushed Jackson into a self-imposed seclusion from the media.
From June 25th to July 11th 2009, upon the announcement Jackson’s death, a virtual “perfect storm” of social media may have forever changed the perception, attitude, and behavior of the masses. Within 48 hours of his death, social media proliferation through blogs, videos, friend feeds, online mainstream news, and discussion forums increased over its daily average by 3,000%, with a majority of the following from 16-26 years of age, according to John Cataldi, CEO of Adreka Advertising. On the day of his memorial service, global web traffic spiked 19% above normal usage, as reported by Akamai, with 30% of all social media postings on popular social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Friend Feeds contained keywords, “Michael Jackson”. Through social mobilization, flash mobs take to the streets in Stockholm, 300+ strong, dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”, with other cities expected to follow this viral dance party worldwide, according to Bounce.NU. To date, there are over 80 million social postings with mention of Michael Jackson, in which an estimated 20% are newly created entries in relation to Jackson’s passing.
According to Adreka’s social media analysis, the impact of social media in relation to the public perception of Michael Jackson’s life, increased in positive sentiment, with most negative aspects of past controversy showing up less than 20% in general search, and 12% in comments left in from friend feeds to forums. In parallel, upon monitoring social media’s affect on e-commerce, iTunes is reporting that 19 out of 100 top songs, and 13 out of top 100 albums download is Michael Jackson. Additionally, popular shopping engines, such as eBay, Amazon, and Craigslist, shows that Michael Jackson albums, books, and collectibles are seeing a dramatic increase, upwards of 115% due to the influential social media postings.
In the words of Michael, “While some have made deliberate attempts to hurt me, I take it in stride because I have a loving family, a strong faith and wonderful friends and fans who have, and continue, to support me.” Yet, seemly overnight, from the news of his death, an emotional outcry shown by MJ Fans and propagated by social networks, has possibly given this mega-entertainer what he could not achieve in life – absolution. Absolution from media criticism, rumors, innuendos, and financial troubles. Moreover, in his death, though tragic, has spawned a rebirth of the mega-star’s music, popularity, and reputation for generations to come.
Political Ad Parody May Influence Potential Generation Y Voters From “The Wrinkly Old Guy, Presidential Candidate, John McCain
The John McCain camp just received the sting of a Viral Video Release that has potentially influenced over 5 Million Americans, suggesting John McCain may not be the best choice for presents from the most unlikely source on political influence on the planet, Paris Hilton.
Paris Hilton, hotel heiress, celebrity socialite, and natural-born narcissist, was made famous from her first viral video release of her 2003 sex video, dubbed “One Night in Paris”. Since then she has been a favorite of the paparazzi. In the eyes of the general public, Paris Hilton is like a bad accident, you can’t bare to look, but your can’t look away. For any Man Men (Ad Professionals), like myself who thrive on sensationalism to drive consumer opinion followed by consumer consumption, she is a rare and beautiful commodity.
The video released on Funny or Die, last week Paris Hilton starred in a spoof on McCain’s “celebrity” advertisement released last week that compared Barack Obama’s popularity with that of Paris Hilton and claimed the Democrat was no more than a celebrity candidate who was not ready to lead the nation. Paris Hilton laying poolside delivers a flawless bikinilog announcing her nomination for President, her National Energy Plan, and decorating ideas for the White House while dressed in a tiny leopard print bathing suit and gold stilettos.
More interesting, a recent online poll suggests that the general public’s consensus has swayed in favor of the socialite. In less than one week, Paris Hilton’s video has transformed from her image from that of a spoiled little rich girl which gave such memorable quotes as,”Wal-mart, is that where they make walls?”, to political activist, intellect, and a likely presidential candidate for the Generation Y. Moreover, Paris’s presidential parody has created a ground swell of support for the Obama campaign. In a recent query on Googles Blog Search there have been over 11,900 blog posts on “Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Ad” which is fueling the videos popularity which has received over 5,654,351 views
The damaging mistake made by the John McCain camp is underestimating the power of social mobilization through viral videos. The lesson learned, try to avoid to mocking those that can most effectively wield such viral power into a cause, or forever be known as the Wrinkly Old Guy.
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