Category Archives: Citizen Media

How to fail at social media strategy

Posted on August 26, 2009 | Leave a comment

I happened to notice a good example of what I thought was a company failing to understand the power of social media, and whilst looking to maintain control of their own publicity they have effectively cut off a powerful medium where others could do the publicity for them. Let me first explain the background to this story:

One of the ‘big two’ Australian supermarket chains operates an ancilliary petrol station in Balwyn in Melbourne where they provide regular grocery shoppers with 4c per litre off their petrol for purchases over $30. At this particular outlet, for at least the past three years, an eccentric young Irish man has worked there who has a unique customer service style, yet one that is appreciated by most of the petrol station’s customers.

Recently this man was enshrined through Facebook with a group page that featured people’s favourite quotes of his, images of him working in the petrol station and even his shift times so that if people so desired, they could get their petrol when he was working.

After having a couple of friends tell me about it, I was one of 536 people to join the group. Yet probably less than a week after joining, I got this message from the group’s creator:

at the request of [the supermarket chain], we have been asked to remove all photos and make the group private, or altug could lose his job. if he does lose his job, i think a good old public riot is in order.
we will have some new pictures up soon enough, but any of altug in his [supermarket chain] gear or in the store have to be removed.

stay in school and give my kind regards to the ghetto

The supermarket chain’s reaction seems quite inexplicable to me, as someone who has been studying the impact of social media for two years now.  Large companies generally have media and communication departments that adjudge publicity to be either brand enhancing or brand detracting. This was a free and wholly customer instigated publicity movement, surely the best kind.

The makeup of the group was mainly of people who were already regular or semi-regular customers of this particular petrol station, simply reflecting on the weird and wonderful experiences they had had of being served by this young Irish man. Sharing memories was likely to keep them coming back to the petrol station to see the individual, who by virtue of working there, was heavily associated with the supermarket chain.

Now this move has created some backlash against the supermarket chain, such as:

  • [The supermarket chain] is good at spoiling some fun, it’s not fun spoiling goods
  • Bloody [Supermarket chain], dont they realise that Balwyn [petrol station] & [the young Irish man] are institutions of the local area??

    Peace out…

  • I dont know about [the supermarket chain]. This is the best free advertising the can get and is also wonderful customer feedback on staff. If he loses his job i’ll give hime one.

The last Facebook user makes an excellent point, it could have been great free advertising. And considering there are other petrol stations in the Balwyn area, including one run by the other major Australian supermarket chain, a viral campaign on Facebook (as the group looked like it was turning into) might have increased business for the petrol station.

This might have occurred if friends of the people joining the group had been curious about it, looked at the group, appreciated the humour and decided to visit that particular petrol station rather than one of the others in the area. Now the group has been deidentified and although people in the know (which obviously most members of the group are) will still know exactly what store the young Irish man works at, there is no opportunity to introduce new audiences to the individual or to his place of work.

There are a few reasons I can see why the supermarket chain might have made the decision that they did:

  • Not being able to control their own branding and image. This is the reason why most organisations are shy about social media. Yet in this case the hijacking of the supermarket chain’s image by users on Facebook was a positive and almost entirely brand enhancing move. As I have identified earlier, their subsequent moves at stopping it have created a negative sentiment and have been brand detracting.
  • The other reason I can see comes from an intimate knowledge of this supermarket chain, having worked for them on and off over nearly five years. They strongly emphasize a team environment (as most organizations in this sector do) and as such, they may not have wanted one individual to become bigger than the team or store itself.

My response to the second point above is that the young Irish man has been well known in the Balwyn area for several years, and the Facebook group was simply extending his fame into the online world.

Anyway, I am going to seek to have the supermarket chain read this blog post, and perhaps try and get some insight from them as to why they have taken their particular actions. So watch this space…

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Smart phones for smart citizens

Posted on August 16, 2009 | Leave a comment

I recently took the plunge and purchased an Apple iPhone. I’m not about to go into a long review of the merits of the handset, but I will say this. It’s not the first smart phone that I’ve owned, that honour goes to the Nokia N95. I found the N95 to be a very useful handset, I used to check email and browse the web on it whenever I was away from my computer. The user experience of the device wasn’t good enough to use it anymore than this, and whenever I had the option of using a fully fledged computer, this would be my preference.

The iPhone changes this. Now I find myself instinctively reaching for it to do numerous online tasks that are now quicker and easier to accomplish using this smartphone. The iPhone is no flash in the pan, it’s heralded a whole new era of user experience on the mobile phone, with Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, Google’s Android and Nokia’s Symbian smart phone operating systems looking to catch up to the custom version of OSX found on the iPhone.

The interesting thing as far as this blog is concerned, is that as people make the transition that I have, and begin to prefer the user experience of a smart phone over a more traditional computer, what sort of possibilities this presents for media creation and interaction.

It has ramifications for the way that people interact with public spaces if their lives are going to become more dependent on these devices. It also means that entertainment that takes place within public spaces has to think about how smart mobile phones could be used to create a richer degree of interaction between the audience. It might be that a sophisticated approach to engaging smart phones translates into a sophisticated approach towards other new mediums.

I’ll keep watching  this evolving space and update you when I can!

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Corporate social media use: lessons learnt

Posted on July 4, 2008 | Leave a comment

The iPhone craze is sweeping the world at the moment and it seems like just about everyone wants one (I would too but after breaking my last phone I paid good money for and seeing the same thing happen to a few friends, I am now of the belief that no one should pay money for a mobile phone, ruling the iPhone out for me). In Australia, three out of the four major mobile operators have secured the iPhone – Optus, Vodafone and Telstra. The fourth, 3 Mobile, seems to be having a tougher time doing a deal with Apple and so interestingly, they turned to social media to help them in their quest.

They set up a blog so that they could inform customers of what was happening with their iPhone negotiations with Apple, and so that Apple could hopefully see how much Three’s customers wanted the iPhone. It was an interesting ploy and one that seemed to really polarize people.

Some people were grateful that Three were being so open and honest with them, in keeping them informed about developments on the iPhone and allowing them to interact directly with Three and other Three customers.

Other people saw it as a desperate marketing ploy to get the iPhone on the Three network, and found it pathetic that Three couldn’t have negotiated with Apple themselves and instead had to turn to their customers to try and convince Apple that Three should carry the iPhone.

Others saw it as a cynical marketing exercise, either as a different take on the ‘register your interest in the iPhone’ pages that the other carriers have had, or a move to see just how many customers they might lose if they weren’t to offer the iPhone.

Three is obviously not a ‘media-facing company’ in the traditional sense, not relying on the mainstream media to generate an income. But it would be interesting to see what sort of reaction people would have to a blog set up in a similar fashion by a media-facing organisation like the AFL. If the league was to suddenly directly interface with its fans and ask them questions about elements of the game, would the fans accuse it of admitting that it was out of touch with its public, or would they see it as an opportunity for greater involvement in the development of the game.

The Three blog is shutting down as of 5pm today, having been open for a week, and it is uncertain as to why this is actually happening. Once again this move has polarised people, who are either disappointed that Three hasn’t secured the iPhone yet or a wondering why the blog is really shutting down.

From this experience it is easy to see why media-facing companies are reluctant to embrace social media. There is so much more control possible in the mainstream media, whereas Three has had a real mixed response from this experience – there have been plenty of people singing its phrases, but also plenty of vitriol from people too, and there is a sense that this experience has devalued the Three brand in the eyes of some at least. I wonder if the same thing would happen to the AFL…

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AFL to players: Don’t read fan blogs

Posted on June 5, 2008 | Leave a comment

Before I begin, I need to give a thankyou to Half Back Flanker for the contents of this blog post. If I hadn’t been reading this site then New Media Mogul might have missed this story entirely.

It would appear that the AFL has advised players not to read fan websites, for fear that the vicious player appraisals could lead to depressions, according to the Herald Sun.

You can read the article for yourselves, but it certainly seems that the AFL is doing nothing to build up a relationship with sports fans who are citizen media makers. It would also seem that the AFL is not very well read on emerging forms of media, as the article is quite clearly referring to people who post on forums, considering at one point that it talks about users stealing the identities of players. As pretty much anyone who uses the Internet would know, the interactions and behaviours within a forum are totally different to those found within a blog.

However on the plus side for sports fans, it does show that they have gained some power through social media, with even the always busy AFL coaches being familiar with fan sites like Big Footy and the ‘viscious cyber-bullying’ that is found within them.

It’s obvious though that the AFL doesn’t see the value in sports fans who are citizen media makers, with the article at one point quoting an AFL official, Pippa Grange, who described them as people ‘with not much better to do’.

New Media Mogul always considered that the AFL would be one of the more progressive sporting organisations when it came to dealing with new media issues, so it is disappointing to see that they have about as much interest in social media, as as much understanding of the potential of the medium as the other sporting organisations covered recently. The International Olympic Committee, with its extremely censored Beijing blogs, is now starting to look quite progressive in its use and encouragement of social media.

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Citizen media and commercialism

Posted on June 4, 2008 | Leave a comment

While the idea behind citizen media might be that anyone has the opportunity to create media, the paradox is that to successfully create media requires dedication and time, something which a lot of people who have to hold down a job, raise a family, or do any of the many other things that keep people occupied, don’t have time for.

For example, New Media Mogul is produced because it is aiding in my completion of a Doctor of Philosophy; in any other circumstances I would probably not be able to find the time to blog about new media issues.

But the point is that the most successful citizen media products are put out by people who either have a business model behind their site or are at least in part, paid to blog. Examples of this are Bryanboy from the fashion industry who is hired by organisers of big fashion shows to provide instantaneous reviews of the shows, and FanFooty from the sporting industry; a site that runs a ‘super coach’ game and provides news and scores on the side.

There is nothing wrong with people making money from their citizen media contributions, but the question is, does this need for commercialism dictate the extent to which citizen media can bring about change on the media landscape.

One of the hopes for citizen media is that it will give a voice to groups and views within the mainstream media that are ignored, underrepresented or misrepresented, yet if commercialism comes into the equation, then perhaps these groups will continue to be as unrepresented as they are in the current, very hegemonic, mainstream media.

Commercialism may also eventually dictate the range of content that citizen journalists choose to cover, if like more traditional media, it becomes driven by advertising. This has been witnessed recently in the mainstream media, with ANZ withdrawing advertising to The Footy Show because of its treatment of women and the Nine Network being subsequently forced to respond by ‘resting’ Sam Newman. If advertisers gain the same sort of power over citizen media producers, then perhaps a form of censorship around citizen media content will take hold.

This is why the effect of citizen journalism on the media landscape needs to be carefully examined, because what appears at first glance to be a more democratic and open minded form of the media, may ultimately be an extension of all proprietary mediums, but simply with a lower entry cost.

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Just how democratic is citizen media?

Posted on May 31, 2008 | Leave a comment

Proponents of citizen media often talk about the democratic ideals inherent in the medium. And sure, it is certainly more democratic than mainstream media because the cost of entry has been lowered significantly. Instead of requiring printing presses and broadcasting infrastructure, to be a player in the citizen media industry, you only need a computer and an Internet connection.

Yet despite social justice efforts like the One Laptop Per Child program, there are many people in this world who have never owned a computer and never will. There are even more people who have never had an Internet connection in their homes and never will.

So a pertinent question, as we move from what I’m calling the proprietary media landscape dominated by corporations to the discursive media landscape made up of corporate media professionals and citizen media makers interacting with each other, is just how far have we really lowered the cost of entry?

Subsequently are we moving from a Western dominated media that serves corporate interests, to a Western dominated media that serves the interests of those involved in it? In other words, how many Iraqi or Afghani bloggers are there? What about Somalian or Zimbabwean bloggers?

There’s bound to be some, but not as many as middle-class, well educated people who dominated the media in the first place. So while the present situation in media might be an improvement over the past, just how much of an improvement is it?

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How do we judge citizen media?

Posted on May 31, 2008 | Leave a comment

In my last post on New Media Mogul, I talked about Molly’s Monday Machinations, which is one of the leading AFL podcasts going around at the moment. As I said then, it is an authentic product because the creator reminds me of the type of guy you’d strike up a conversation with on the way home from the game, dissecting the team’s performance. It’s obvious that he is passionate about Australian rules football, considering he puts out at least 4 podcasts a week, and he’s well read.

It’s also obvious that the mainstream media still plays an agenda setting role for his podcast, further confirming some analysis conducted on New Media Mogul several months ago now. The podcast is an authentic product because we know what Molly’s biases are – he’s an unashamedly passionate supporter of Australian rules football and a Hawwthorn supporter. This is unlike a piece from a football journalist in one of the metropolitan newspapers, where we don’t know what team they follow and we don’t know if they’re into football, or if it’s just a job for them.

But how else do we judge this content? By traditional standards it isn’t very engaging, and wouldn’t give The Footy Show a run for its money, despite all the controversy that show has created of late. Yet what is it about citizen media that makes it an engaging medium?

Is it some sort of voyeuristic quality? Do we enjoy getting a glimpse into the lives of other ordinary people and what their thoughts are on certain things, in a non-contrived kind of way?

Is it some sort of rejoicing or interest in the banality of it all? In much the same way that people watch Funniest Home Videos for people making fools of themselves, do we watch citizen media because people get up on their soap boxes and sometimes say outrageous things?

So is this how citizen media should be judged? As another form of entertainment, even if it could be entertaining in a peverse kind of way? Or is it because we enjoy the simplicity of this kind of media, in much the same way we enjoy those conversations on the way home on the train?

Or is it some sort of reaction to the mainstream media and all its politics? Then again, considering citizen media producers like Molly are ultimately informed by the mainstream media, are we simply just putting a layer between ourselves and the media influence we’re trying to get away from?

I’m not sure how many of these questions I have answers to yet, but they are all relevant in trying to determine what it is about citizen media that makes it so popular, and what sort of issues arise from its popularity.

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The future of journalism

Posted on May 20, 2008 | Leave a comment

I don’t specifically have an interest in the future of professional journalism, only in how it intersects with citizen journalism, but the topic has generated some interesting debate of late after the recent Future of Journalism summit. It has spawned a blog post on The Age website and a special episode of ABC’s Media Watch, which you can either watch or view a transcript of.

It’s interesting that there are some experts who see a future where armies of citizen journalists will work alongside a select band of journalists and editors in bringing the world its news. Personally I don’t see this as the point of citizen media – it has different aims and ambitions to the mainstream media and the opportunities it presents might be lost if the media landscape was to function in this way.

As I said in the previous post it is good to see content emerging from bloggers that is interesting and authentic and free from the sanitization of the mainstream media. An example of this I’ve uncovered recently is Molly’s Monday Machinations which is a vodcast that appears to be presented from the creator’s bedroom. It’s never going to replace The Footy Show or Before The Game but it is a highly informative and comprehensive program from a passionate fan of Australian rules football. But the point is that the lack of production values make it more authentic and consequently more interesting. Molly is the type of guy you might strike up a conversation with on the way home on the train and dissect the game with, and to have this point of view disseminated within the media landscape is what makes citizen media cool.

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When new media turns nasty

Posted on May 20, 2008 | Leave a comment

New Media Mogul has recently started paying attention to blogging within the fashion industry – holding it up as a good example of how a media facing organisation can use the opportunities created by the social media software movement to its benefit. Now it appears that an ‘insider blog’ about the fashion industry called Maghag has been launched, which exposes the unpleasant side of the fashion industry in much the same way that the recent anti-Ted Ballieu blog exposed the ugly side of the Victorian Liberal Party.

A whole separate debate could be had about the appropriateness of these insider blogs, but it is hard to argue that the ‘no holds barred’ approach that is often found in blogs makes for more original, authentic and interesting media content than the overly sanitized approach of the mainstream media.

You can read the full article here, and a big thankyou to my father, John Macdonald, for sourcing this article.

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The fashion industry gets it right

Posted on May 5, 2008 | Leave a comment

Sporting organisations might be struggling to get their head around new media but at least the fashion industry seems to understand it. Organisers of Australian Fashion Week paid for some ‘elite’ bloggers to travel to Sydney to cover the event last week. According to Rachel Wells in The Age:

‘We’ve invited some of these guys here because our role is to get people talking about Australian fashion. And when you’ve got bloggers that provide immediate commentary within hours, even minutes, of a show finishing, and they are communicating to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people around the globe, why wouldn’t you get them here?’ says Australian Fashion Week founder Simon Lock.

One of the bloggers invited, Bryanboy believes that the power of the blogger lies in the ability to give uncensored, unedited fashion commentary to a global audience. As he says, ‘I think readers trust us because they know we don’t have a vested interest…We don’t have editors or advertisers to please like magazines and I think that gives us a lot more cred. We tell it how it is and people really value that’.

The thing to note about the fashion industry is that its media coverage is different to that of sport. It relies on monthly magazines like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar to get its products out in the public domain – so blogging is a god-send for the industry because now it has almost immediate access to its consumers. Sport quite self evidently has never had this problem but it could still learn from Bryanboy’s point – fans appreciate a view where there is no vested interest. And making content exclusive on the web as in the case of the IPL does not encourage citizen journalists to cover sporting events.

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