PBS recently showed the world what it means to be agile about social business.
It started when the Public Broadcasting Service got slammed by Governor Mitt Romney during the recent presidential debate as a non-essential recipient of federal funding.
The social media world erupted with an outpouring of support for PBS and its popular Sesame Street character, Big Bird. The Twitterverse responded with fake Big Bird accounts -- photoshopped pictures of Big Bird holding signs that read "Will work for food" and "I am the 1 percent. My merchandise alone can fund all of PBS," and even fundraising campaigns.
Big Bird was one of the top three trending topics on Twitter during the debate. This was all it took for the PBS marketing folks to go to town. PBS bought a Twitter ad for Big Bird. Everybody who searched for Big Bird was served up an ad in addition to their search results. The ad, complete with the PBS logo, read: "PBS is trusted, valued and essential. See why at valuepbs.org. (Please retweet!)"
Perfect. The ad was timely and relevant, and it included a call to action and the request to retweet -- all essential elements of a successful social media initiative.
But PBS didn't stop there. It also issued a press release the following day on its Website, thus integrating its new media tactics with the traditional form of communication. The press release stated:
We are very disappointed that PBS became a political target in the debate. Governor Romney does not understand the value the American people place on public broadcasting... which serves as a universally accessible resource for education, history, science, arts and civil discourse. Over the course of a year, 91% of all U.S. households tune in to their local PBS station.
PBS also noted that the federal investment in public broadcasting equals about one one-hundreth of 1 percent of the federal budget, and elimination of funding would have no impact on the nation's debt.
The Twitter ad was short but reached thousands in a short period of time. The press release was more detailed and provided the substantive facts that the media could include in their numerous reports in the days that followed.
Just as the social media gurus will tell you, an effective marketing campaign must combine social, Web, mobile, print, promotions, storytelling, and a call-to-action. PBS nailed it.
Marketing strategist David Meerman Scott calls this type of social media offensive newsjacking: "The process by which you inject your ideas into breaking news in real-time to generate media coverage for your organization; throw your opponent off balance; and attract the attention of a highly-engaged audience."
PBS wasn't the sole beneficiary of this social campaign. Online retailers like costumecraze.com reported a 500 percent increase in sales of Big Bird Halloween costumes. And a week after the debate, the Obama campaign produced a humorous TV ad featuring Big Bird. Available on YouTube, the ad has been viewed over 3 million times.
So a timely social media campaign not only benefits the sponsor, but can also have a wide-ranging network effect to communities of shared interest. And that's what being social is all about.
— Karyl Scott is a technology journalist based in San Diego, where she covers the intersection of mobile and social media, big-data, analytics, and business innovation.
jaballo - That's a bold statement...will you stick by it in five, ten...20 years?!
I think I will.
Remember back 10-15 years ago when traditional media companies pooh-poohed social media (although the phrase hadn't been invented yet) and other forms of user-generated content? They said that people will always want to consume professional media.
They were half-right. People still want to consume large volumes of professional media. But they also want to create content.
The biggest professional blogs are basically newspapers and magazines.
And people will always want to watch video on big-screen TVs in the living room (although they'll also do it on mobile devices). Because, hey, it's a big-screen TV. And the couch is right there.
How about rigth now...aren't we having this conversation, a mini-threaded debate, on the social media of blog comments...without any traditional media present?
Yes we are! But IBM, which sponsors Internet Evolution, views this community as part of its marketing budget. IBM also is active on other social media -- but it also runs TV commercials, magazine ads, and hosts conferences.
Imagine..Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, using their Facebook accounts, and posting ideas, messages, live...and having us in the Peanut Gallery branching off that with our own ideas.
Obama did something like that. He did a Reddit AMA, where anybody could come on and ask the President anything. Turned out that it was just as easy for a politican to doge questions and deliver pre-digested political pap on Reddit as it is on TV. Social media is just a tool.
The Big Bird effect may pale before the "binders full of women," one, which generated the trending #BinderOfWomen and may have even jumpstarted the career of a social media manager who was just laid off . Talk about seizing an opportunity! It's great: everyone can use the debate for their own end, which should earn the whole thing the hasthag I suggest: #BindersOfAbsurdity
Luckily for PBS and maybe the candidates who got lots of press for the remark, the Big Bird branding is what caught on. Coca Cola or a Big Mac could probably have captured the news and blogosphere had those brands been mentioned.
Mention something well known, famous, or in the news, and you're on your way to creating the viral event. At least in theory. It's still much bound to luck and happenstance whether any sound bite will have legs.
Bravo. Should a public entity be taking sides (and they certainly are) in a political discussion? Perhaps we should ask the Teacher's Unions. It's gotten so bad that, when we find out they're backing a given proposition, we know we should vote against it. PBS is just more noise, more of "five hundred stations and nothing to watch." There's a special place in Hell for the kind of people who would politicize a beloved children's figure. It's like saying that Santa is a Republican because he wears a red suit, or because he only gives toys to good little boys and girls. Effective use of social media implies a correct use of social media. This didn't even come close.
I wouldn't call PBS a federal funding priority. About 15 percent of its funding comes from the federal government - some $70 to $80 million, I believe.
That's around 0.000005% of the 2012 defense budget, which runs to over $1.4 trillion.
Am I the only one who tires of some of this multithreaded political discussion? At some point it takes so much time to wade through all these comments, many of which are just noise, some of which are obscene, that I just don't really want to do it.
It sounds great to have a lot of engagement, but in some ways, in some contexts, I wonder if it's really so great.
As the author, Amanda Hirsch, wrote in the comments I honestly don't know what I think, in terms of whether public media should be a federal funding priority. I know it's a priority for me, given my value system... and I certainly don't want a federal budget that funds military only and cuts everything that enriches American democracy and its citizens at home... like public media, education, social services, etc. But I think given the changes in media since pub broadcasting was founded, let alone the grave state of our economy, it's important to have a "come to Jesus" moment about what this country truly wants/ needs from its public media -- and that means getting beyond the overly simplistic "Save Big Bird" rallying cry.
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The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
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