We Are Organized Chaos

What’s New In Social Media – 7/15/2010

• Have you seen the trailer to “The Social Network” yet?  It’s the major motion picture about the creation of Facebook.
• Domino’s in the UK uses Foursquare and Facebook to drive web orders… that sounds like ROI.
• Over half of location based service users fear a loss of privacy.
• Odds are, by now you’re familiar with Old Spice’s social media campaign “heard round the world”.  Here’s a great piece on how they did it, and here’s one compiling the stats.
• A great infographic on the rise of Twitter.
• Ben & Jerry’s stops email marketing in favor of social media… not sure why it’s one or the other, but okay.

What’s New in Mobile Marketing – 3/10/10

• Comcast’s iPhone App Adds Remote DVR Scheduling
• Air Video, the Best iPhone Video Streamer $3 Can Buy
• GDC 10: FreeAppADay.com Propels FingerZilla from Unknown to App Store Number One in 24 Hours
• Titanium 1.0 Launches: Build Native Apps for Desktop, Mobile & iPad
• Three Lessons From The Chipotle iPhone App
• The iPad Poses a Threat to Kindle’s Market Share [STATS]
• Foursquare and SPIN Magazine Turn SXSW Into Musical Scavenger Hunt
• 99 Apps Launches $99 iPhone App for Restauranteurs
• TwitCasting Lets You Stream Live Video And Tweet Simultaneously From Your iPhone
• Facebook’s iPhone Usage Jumps 20 Percent In Under A Week
• ARWire – Your AR News on the Move
• Macy’s, Domino’s, Unilever’s Dove Case Studies at Mobile Marketing Day
• Global Smartphone App Download Market Could Reach $15 Billion By 2013: Report
• What the iPad’s Lack of Flash Means To Marketers
• Google Gesture Search Is Great — If You Can Get It
• Twitter Sees 347% Growth in Mobile Browser Access
• Gartner: Touchscreen Mobile Device Sales will Grow 97% in 2010
• Mobile Augmented Reality Poised for Rapid Growth
• Hustler on the iPhone (How to get around iTunes approval process? Why just mobile optimize your site…)
• Indie Coder Proves Android Apps Can Make Money, Too
• Mobile Boarding Passes Take Off With 1200% Usage Increase In 2009
• Skype App Hits Ovi Store, And Potentially 200 Million Nokia Handsets Next
• The Importance of Touch on the Mobile Web
• Best Buy Names Top Six Trends in Mobile Marketing, Commerce
• Books Now Outnumber Games on the iPhone
• Y Combinator To Startups: “We think the iPad is meant to be a Windows killer”
• An iPhone app To Bypass Front Desks And Open Room Locks
• 26% of Americans Get News Via Their Mobiles
• Android and RIM Eat Into Apple’s Share Of Mobile Web
• Dropcam Gets an iPhone App
• An App for That, Too: How Mobile Is Changing Shopping
• How To Create an iPhone or Droid App For Your Business (good overview of the DIY apps out there)
• I Don’t Like The iPad Because…
• When It Comes To iPhone Games, What Sells Is Action, Adventure, and Arcade

What’s New in Mobile Marketing – 09/09/09

• Favorite Brands Of Global Mobile Internet Users? #1 KFC, #2 McDonald’s, #3 Sony, #4 Nestle, #5 Samsung, #6 Nokia, #7 LG, #8 Coca-Cola, #9 Panasonic, #10 Philips
• When It Comes To Mobile Marketing Think Loyalty, Not Coupons
• Domino’s: Mobile Commerce Growing At Astounding Rate
• ReadWriteWeb: Mobile Commerce Is Struggling. Except For Small Ticket Items Like Pizza (See Link Above)
• Loopt To Run iPhone Location Services In Background
• Bluetooth ‘Rings On Your Fingers’ Cell Phone Concept. Call Me?
• Twitter Vs. Mobile: A Marketer’s Scorecard
• AT&T iPhone FINALLY Getting MMS On September 25th
• Smartphone Sales To Surpass PC Sales by 2011
• 25% Of Facebook Users Connect Via Mobile Phones
• Sears, Loehmann’s, Rubio’s Using Mobile Coupons To Drive Consumers In-Store
• iPhone Users Are Data Whores

Why “Twitter Internships” Are A Bad Idea

So, earlier this week the NY Times reported that Pizza Hut is looking for summer interns to become “Twinterns”. According to the Yum Brand’s job posting:

“The summer twinternship at Pizza Hut allows for many hands-on opportunities including:

• Collect and share insights and experiences while working for Pizza Hut through social and interactive media: Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, New and emerging media
• Twintern will be given unprecedented access to marketing meetings, brainstorm sessions, ad shoots and special events
• Monitor social media for pop culture news, off-the-wall stories or anything else quirky and fun that he or she thinks would be of interest to loyal Pizza Hut fans.
• Chronicle experience through video; edit and post to selected media
• Conduct media outreach for PR programs
• Assist with execution of national PR programs”

Now, while I think this is a significantly better use of social media than Domino’s “Snot Lovers Pizza Campaign” that ran last week, I still think that this effort missed the mark. Here’s why:

1. Large brands play on a different field than the moms & pops of this world. And, while using your college-aged nephew to help your small business build a social identity is an excellent idea, it doesn’t work when we are talking about businesses as large as Pizza Hut. The stakes are too high. Simply put, a newly hired intern cannot be expected to know the ins and outs of Pizza Hut’s brand/business (especially their marketing goals/objectives) well enough to be its spokesperson. And that’s what they would be, Pizza Hut’s spokesperson. This is a consumer-facing role. One that will put the person “on display”, the public face of Pizza Hut, for potentially thousands upon thousands of consumers. And let’s not kid ourselves, some of them will be very very angry. Some will even attack this Twintern personally. It’s not right, but it’s reality. Whoever fills this role will need a thick skin (usually gained by experience), and the ability to act professionally, even when the person who attacked them did not. Now, I’m not saying college interns are incapable of acting professionally in the face of adversity, but in my opinion there’s a reason that the brands typically seen as getting social media “right” (e.g. Ford, Southwest, Dell, Best Buy) have somewhat (to “very”) senior people front and center. The people on Pizza Hut’s social media team need to know their stuff, and they need to be empowered to respond quickly to consumers. Bloggers/Journalists will not wait 6 hours for an intern to check in with a supervisor. Neither will a customer. And in today’s day and age, bad news travels fast. It doesn’t need to be a fact. A blogger’s perception can become his/her reader’s realities. Do you think Pizza Hut wants to see their intern’s tweets quoted in the NY Times or WSJ?
2. This is a 10 – 12 week internship. Who will be running the show once these students go back to Keg Parties, PS3′s, and (some) books? Social media is not a campaign, it’s a tool used to execute an engagement strategy. What is the plan for when all of Pizza Huts’ interns go back to school? Who will create all the content? Who will distribute it? Who will carry on the conversations with all the connections these Twinterns have created? If you walked into a Pizza Hut, struck up a conversation with the person behind the counter, and then all of a sudden they just walked away, straight out the front door never to be seen again … how would you feel? You’d be thinking “WTF was that”? Well, online, it’s the same thing only thousands would be thinking “WTF was that?”, and with the click of a “retweet” button, everyone they know could be thinking it too.

So, let me know what you think. What did you think of Pizza Hut’s move?