In the movie Grown Ups 2, there are chemicals in the pool that will make it turn blue when someone pees (see video). Of course, those chemicals do not actually exist. However, it does a great job at portraying just how quickly it spreads, and how it becomes impossible to cover up.
Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff make this case right at the start of their book "Groundswell". In explaining what the groundswell is, they argue there is no escaping it. Just like the "Grown Ups" had no way of escaping the blue chemical once they peed; there is no escaping the groundswell.
Li and Bernoff define the groundswell as: "a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather from traditional institutions like corporations" (Li & Bernoff, 2011, p. 9).
The power is now at the hands of the people. So if this groundswell is something that cannot be escaped, companies need to join. First they must understand it.
Understand the groundswell.
Understand that we are in a digital age and as soon as you hit that post button, there is no going back, no matter how fast you delete it. So think about how your audience will receive what you post.
Let's look at the tweet Clorox submitted (on the right). Keep in mind this was right after Apple released its new emojis in 2015 to include emojis of different races... yeah Clorox... ya messed up.
Clorox handled the mess-up well. Instead of leaving it as it was, or replying back and forth with individual tweets, they combated their spill and apologized in a funny way that was well received.
Understand the groundswell.
Understand how the groundswell works. No matter what medium you are using, understand it before you use it. Understand Twitter. Understand that Twitter is a social network that allows for short updates. Understand the concept of the hashtag. When you use a hashtag on Twitter, you are joining a community of others sharing the same hashtag.
DiGiorno Pizza certainly did not understand the technology it was using and it hurt them.The WhyIStayed hashtag was being used for a community of victims of domestic violence... and spreading awareness of it. DiGiorno thought it was being part of a trend using a popular hashtag, but they did not do their research properly. If they had, they would have seen just what the hashtag was being used for and would have seen that their tweet had no business being in the same community of tweets. Instead they neglected to do that, and posted it...
Unfortunately, I scrolled all the way down... and Twitter would only let me see the tweets from March 2015 and sooner so I was unable to look into the comments or see if the tweet was still on their page or not. However, I did find a tweet of them apologizing.
From both of the examples I showed (and the many others still out there) it is so obvious and evident how prominent the groundswell is, and how important it is to understand it. Because once you hit that send or submit button, there is no getting it back, no matter how hard you try.
Understand the groundswell, or you will find yourself trying to take the pee out of a swimming pool.
Great post, Nikki! The Clorox & DiGiorno examples were interesting and ones that I had not previously heard about. As both show, addressing the criticism is necessary and deleting a post without addressing it is about the worst thing you can do. It's like the example in chapter one, in which Li & Bernoff pointed out that, "By asking that the story be taken down, the representatives of the movie industry had created a whirlwind of publicity, ensuring that it could never be taken down." (p.6)
ReplyDeleteThanks for your response Kristin! Yeah, when writing my post I kept thinking of when Li and Bernoff referred to it as the Streisand effect (p. 7). When she wanted a picture of her house removed from the Internet, but instead of it being removed, it only got shared more. You can't remove anything from the Internet.
DeleteI love that you picked this analogy from the book. I remember laughing when I read it the first time. It's so true, though. You're lucky if you get a thirty second window to delete something after you post it. People are ready to screenshot anything they see in a second. My fear though, is that people will be more tentative to express themselves.
ReplyDeleteDiGiorno obviously didn't intend to belittle the seriousness of domestic violence. The reaction they got was as if they had committed domestic violence themselves. Let's be honest, Digiorno pizza is not a major problem when it comes to domestic violence. So why should they be treated as though they are? To be sure, they should have apologized, and were right to do so. But is it really a worthy time investment to bring down a frozen pizza company in an effort to combat domestic violence? It's important for people to understand their role in the groundswell. I think there are wiser ways to exercise the power one gets as a part of the groundswell