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Blog posts tagged internet
Internet election? #fail
May 06, 2010
In the middle of the most important day in UK politics for five years, I have a simple question: what happened to the “Internet election” we were promised?
I have no idea how many people involved in the Obama campaign were hired to look after social media, but at the beginning of this election each party was trying to outdo the other with grand claims about hiring the brains behind the Obama Internet election strategy. Now, I don’t really know what that means, especially as the brains behind Obama’s campaign were the grassroots activists, but whatever the three main parties hoped for it hasn’t happened.
Instead, of using the internet to empower, the parties have got it the wrong way around by taking bloggers and Twitterati out of digital realm and giving them a real life platform. I am no political strategist, but this is not a good idea.
Labour started it by giving the cringeworthy Ellie Gellard (aka Bevanite Ellie) a lectern and some tissues so she can cry when Gordon speaks; Dave continued to cosy up with Mumsnet whenever there was a TV camera and a packet of Hobnobs around; and Nick − well I spent 30 seconds on his website before my eyes melted.
To summarise, the three parties took something that looked like a digital strategy and applied it to the old world. The very pre-requisite of an Internet election is − you got it − it uses the Internet. And all three parties failed, badly.
Got to dash, I have hired the guy that proofread the blog posts for the Obama campaign popping over in a moment. He’ll like this one.
The blog is mightier than the sword
September 18, 2009
In the old days a quibble over a product or service not being up to scratch would be resolved through an exchange of letters with a customer service department. A swift resolution ensuing, the customer would be happy and the business might have gone beyond just saving face and reinforced its brand values, too. Today, this model is not quite so strong.
According to Webuser.co.uk, a holidaymaker has secured £600 in compensation for a disastrous holiday as a result of the prominent Google search ranking he achieved for the angry blog he fired off when a complaint letter to the holiday firm yielded no result.
The holidaymaker had originally penned a letter of complaint (ten pages of letter, in fact) detailing a depressing series of problems he encountered during a less than satisfactory Tunisian holiday. After six weeks, having only received an acknowledgment for his rant, the increasingly angry traveller went public and recorded his troubles on his personal blog.
In no time, he was getting lots of traffic – much of it from people who had simply typed search terms relating to holidays in Tunisia. In fact, the critical blog entry’s Google ranking was creeping ever closer to the summit on all the key search terms the travel company would rather see taking you to the holiday package they were trying to flog.
Once the holiday company became aware of the growing popularity of the blog post, blogs about the blog post and probably even blogs blogging about the impact of blog posts about the original blog post - such is the way the Internet feeds off itself - it became apparent that an “elevated” level of response was required. Compensation was paid to the blogger and an apology posted on his blog, to boot.
However, it may be too late for damage limitation – the rant, of course, has been widely seen and still exists in the public domain. The digital footprint of a blog post that would never have seen the light of day had the travel company responded sooner is now leaving the most indelible – and embarrassing – of stains on its reputation.
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