Media in the New Millennium

posted by Doyle

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) stepped in a bit of a pile of its own making this week — yet another example of treating social media like broadcast media.

Once and for all: it doesn’t work.

Allie Sullivan wrote a great post about the situation on her blog. I agree with her point of view, and also agree that I’m not against what PETA does, but what they did here gives us another case study for how not to execute a program via social media.

PETA’s basic idea wasn’t bad: get moms with strong social media voices to express outrage over the treatment of baby elephants by circus trainers — in other words, you shouldn’t take your kids, and here’s why. That could be a very good use of social media — get those who support your cause to be your advocate to their networks, with whom they’ve built trust.

But a good idea poorly executed typically falls apart. This one sure did.

Instead of analyzing these mom’s posts to see if they were likely to support the PETA cause, and then engaging in a conversation with them to see if they would be interested in helping spread the word, they used Twitter @spam (sending a Tweet to someone who may or may not follow you starting with their Twitter handle so they’ll see the message) and reached out to people based on only two things: the size of their audience and the fact they were “mommy bloggers.” As a result, just about every bad thing you could anticipate happened. So, where all did they miss?

1. First, they used “@spam.” This irritates me more than regular spam. To be blunt, it’s nothing more than pee in the Twitter stream. If I got @spam from a cause I did support, I wouldn’t help based on principle. If you want to talk to me and choose to reach me this way, it better be an invitation to a conversation, not a random mass message. BIG blunder.
2. They assumed their “targets” (and I use that term loosely here) would support their cause. Just one of the key differences between traditional and social media is the fact that if a regular ad reaches me and I don’t want to respond, I’ll probably just ignore it. In social media, there’s a decent chance I’ll do just the opposite of what you want me to do. You might get my attention alright, but it won’t be the attention you want. Anyone who reads Jessica Gottlieb’s blog knows you don’t want to be on her bad side, and you might want to figure out what side she’s likely to choose before you engage her (that’s just a good idea in general). I loved her comment on the Adrants blog, noting that she doesn’t follow PETA on Twitter and “was busy eating a hamburger when the tweets started.” If they had done five minutes of research, they would have found Jessica is not a supporter, wouldn’t be a good target and reaching out to her just may backfire. It did.
3. They hoped for a response rather than asking for it. If I’d like someone to do something for me, I need to ask. “Would you be willing to do this?” is an important question. PETA hoped these women would view the baby elephant photos, be outraged and push the message to their large and often influential networks. That’s a pretty big assumption. In some cases, even if the targeted mom agreed with the cause, her blog might not be an appropriate place to post such information. I’ve had people send me things for my blog that I didn’t do anything with not because I disagreed, but because they just didn’t fit with the editorial idea I have for this space. In public relations, you don’t pitch a software story to the sports reporter, and if you want someone to talk to their network about you, make sure you’re the kind of thing they would talk to their network about. You find this information by first listening, then requesting. Assuming will not get you the response you’re looking for.

If PETA had sent this information in a press release to reporters that cover animal issues, it may have been successful in generating stories (assuming they target reporters better than they target bloggers). But just as you don’t buy 30 seconds of television time to show a still picture of your newspaper ad, you don’t use the tactics from traditional media in social media. If you do, your chances of failure are pretty good.

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