It seems like every time I pick up a newspaper there is a new article on social media.  This level of hype is starting to make me nervous that we are all overselling what social media can and cannot do.  To bring a little perspective to the game I wanted to write about some of what I am reading and provide some comments.

Yesterday, January 31, 2011, the Wall Street Journal had an interesting article on Taco Bell’s response via social media to a recent lawsuit “filed by a disgruntled customer on Jan 19 [alleging]… that the restaurant chain’s taco mixture consists of more filler than meat”.  Taco Bell’s rebuttal included full page ads that read “Thank You for Suing Us” – the ads purport that the lawsuit gave Taco Bell a chance to publicize their high quality ingredients and yes just how much meat they put into the tacos (88% according to them; the remaining 12% of the ingredients are added for flavor). Taco Bell has used its Facebook page to post about the lawsuit, and launched a YouTube video which is a clip of an interview with the Associated Press that presents the Taco Bell side of the case.   I thought by far the most interesting and strategic thing that Taco Bell did was to purchase the keywords “taco bell lawsuit”.  This was brilliant.  It means that Taco Bell created content is at the top of all the search engines results pages.  So given how few individuals really scroll down the page or let alone click onto pages two or three – the Taco Bell side of the story will most likely be what most people read about the case.  Go try it yourself – Google it and you will see the Taco Bell Official Statement as the first item in the list followed by news coverage.   I think this is a worthwhile strategy we should all consider.  If your organization was hit with a major negative campaign of some kind, moving quickly to ensure that critical keywords pointed to content you created might be a fairly simple but powerful tool.  And I can’t overemphasize speed.  Taco Bell moved quickly – all of these actions happened within days of the lawsuit filing which means Taco Bell communications staff was paying attention and must have had some established protocol for dealing with this kind of scenario.  You should too.

Also on January 31, 2011 The Denver Post had a huge article about the role social media is playing in the upcoming Super Bowl.  Many companies – Mercedes Benz, Kia, Bud Light, and others – are creating games and contests that tie in with their advertising that will air during the Super Bowl.  We all know that the Super Bowl advertisements have become as much fun (or more fun) to watch than the games themselves so adding in a social media component to build buzz and spread the advertising further before the “big game” makes total sense to me.  However, I must say this is one of those areas where I am not sure how much bang you would be getting for your buck.  I am not going to drink Bud Light just because of the Budweiser Clydesdales, (seriously it’s an acquired taste) even though they are adorable and I love the commercials.  Budweiser has done sneak previews of the upcoming Super Bowl commercial that will feature the Clydesdales as part of the AFC and NFL championship games along with posting links on their Facebook page.  And apparently they have seen a pretty good spike in “likes”.  The article says they hit a million fans by January 28 but I looked today (Feb 1) and they only had a bit over 650,000. So maybe these campaigns are targeted to folks that already like your product which may have some value- as in solidifying brand loyalty- but I am not sure if there is going to be an increase in profits that you can point to once game day is over.  So the take away lesson here?  It’s okay to add a social media component to an existing event or outreach even if you can’t point to a specific measurement to rate success just use some discretion when allocating resources.

And lastly – mashable.com reports the New York Times has added links to its Facebook and Twitter accounts to the www.nytimes.com homepage.  No take away lesson here – I just had to laugh at the breathlessness with which this news was greeted.  As if the last bastion of traditional information distribution had fallen low to all things digital.  You know folks, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

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Blog by Joyce