Social Media Update – March 21, 2011

Good morning, Groupon can’t seem to get over their botched Super Bowl ad. Andrew Mason, Goupon’s CEO recently blamed himself and the agency that created the ad for the debacle. Groupon seems to be moving along despite the ads poor taste, but this is a perfect example of why companies need to keep to their core messages even when letting agencies run campaigns. Twitter turns 5 today. The social site went from 5k tweets per day in 2007 to a staggering 140 million per day in 2011. Twitter has really grown itself into a real-time news hub for everything from celeb gossip to global streams of information. Rebecca Black is the perfect example of why viral videos can be your worst nightmare. Her video “Friday” went viral after The Daily What posted it up last week and the critics came pouring in. The video features the 13 year old singing some auto tuned version of her Friday happenings, and it’s picked up nearly 30 million views and 80k dislikes over the course of the week. Enjoy.

I. Groupon CEO: We Placed Too Much Trust in Agency for Super Bowl Ads, adage.com, March 21, 2011
II. Happy 5th #Birthday @Twitter, cnn.com, March 21, 2011
III. Rebecca Black makes ‘Friday’ video; Internet attacks, msn.com, March 19, 2011
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I. Groupon CEO: We Placed Too Much Trust in Agency for Super Bowl Ads, adage.com, March 21, 2011
http://adage.com/article/news/groupon-ceo-relied-agency-bowl-ads/149498/
Talk about adding insult to injury. As if CP&B’s breakup last week with one of its biggest clients, Burger King, wasn’t bad enough, it also was publicly slammed by another marketer — which just happens to be one of the most-talked-about companies in the world right now. It seemed to be a rapid change of heart. After defending controversial Super Bowl ads created with CP&B, Groupon CEO Andrew Mason is now blaming CP&B and himself for trusting it as an ad partner.

II. Happy 5th #Birthday @Twitter, cnn.com, March 21, 2011
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/03/21/twitter.anniversary/index.html?hpt=T2
The message was cryptic. Two words. No context, no punctuation, just: “inviting coworkers” But that short statement proved to be enough to launch a global phenomenon that has launched careers, reunited long-lost relatives, and even, some would argue, topple dictators.
It was the first tweet. Since Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey posted it on March 21, 2006, Twitter has registered nearly 200 million users who now post more than a billion tweets every week.

III. Rebecca Black makes ‘Friday’ video; Internet attacks, msn.com, March 19, 2011
http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2011/03/18/6295651-rebecca-black-makes-friday-video-internet-attacks-
The Internet is no place for the faint of heart, and failing a Vonnegutian “Welcome to the Monkey House” future envisioned by our Facebook overlords, that’s just the way it is. No one knows this better than the adolescent American female demographic, what with their penchant for tweeting death threats to and vandalizing Wikipedia entries of anyone who dares cast even the vaguest aspersions on, or stand too close to, their beloved Justin Bieber.