PR 101

NBC demonstrated to me Sunday night that they are tone deaf when it comes to social media. Which means they are tone deaf when it comes to listening to their viewers. That’s dangerous. They should ask United Airlines or Proctor & Gamble what happens when you ignore people who use social media.

If you were watching the Olympics Sunday, you saw what I thought was a pretty good closing ceremony. If you lived anywhere other than the United States, you got to see the ceremony straight through without interruption. If you were unlucky enough to be watching the NBC television network, your Olympic viewing was interrupted by an insipid reality show called “The Marriage Ref,” and local news. In all, there was about an hour break in the viewing. For those living in the eastern time zone of the U.S., that meant they had to stay up until 1 a.m. to see the entire ceremony.

As one who closely monitors social media, I can tell you the Twittersphere was alive with complaints. I have no idea how many, but I can you there were thousands judging by how fast the hashtags #NBC and #NBCFail kept updating. And the anger wasn’t just over the decision to cut off the Olympics; it was also over the decision to bring Jay Leno back to the Tonight Show.

Here’s a sample of the tweets going out on #NBCFail:

• wtfgerard: RT @nNoela: NBC is continuing their Winter Olympics coverage with a new downhill event. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. #imwithcoco #nbcfail I give this tweeter credit for combining his anger on two events into one tweet.
• disappointedme: BOYCOTT LENO and his Olympic killing network. #TeamCoco #imstillwithcoco #NBCFAIL #RIKSHAZ9LIRK #SuckitNBC As a note: the hashtags “I’mwithcoco (Conan O’Brien) was the third most popular topic on Twitter Monday. That’s quite an accomplishment considering there are an estimated 50 million tweets a day.
• MONTANAinAZ: RT @ColorMeRed: Just to thank NBC for their exceptional coverage (sarc) of the Winter Olympics, my TV will be reprogrammed to everything but NBC #NBCfail This was a particularly popular tweet. I saw it at least a dozen times.
• lvnTrey: RT @ChefMark: Although sad that the Olympics is over, I’m happy that NBC’s reign of tyranny on my set is over! #NBCFail. Oh, and #shutupCostas

You get the idea. There was a lot of anger. And a lot of calls for boycotting NBC. The anger went viral pretty quickly. As I write this on Tuesday, it is still going on. If anything, the flames are burning brighter.

What surprised me is that I never saw any response from NBC to all of this. They did apparently use an application called TwitterFeed to send out positive sounding tweets about “The Marriage Ref.” TwitterFeed is an app in which you enter a bunch of tweets at one time and then schedule them to be sent out over whatever time period you want. Judging by the tweets, I would say someone decided to send a tweet about every 10 minutes.  You can often tell someone has done this because the tweets tend to be phrased alike. They stopped when several people called NBC on it.

Doing that is a violation of one of my social media rules: don’t ever pretend to be something you are not. The social media universe hates lying. And, it destroys credibility.

Getting back to my main point, I am shocked frankly that the once proud Peacock Network did nothing to calm down angry viewers. NBC is in fourth place in a four-network race. They cannot afford to do something like this. This is not 15 years ago. Social media keeps things alive.

In NBC’s position, they cannot alienate their stakeholders. Those viewers have other choices. Fox, CBS, ABC and the hundreds of cable channels will all benefit from NBC’s decision not to engage with its viewers. It doesn’t appear NBC understands that. It’s sad.

NBC demonstrated to me Sunday night that they are tone deaf when it comes to social media. Which means they are tone deaf when it comes to listening to their viewers. That’s dangerous. They should ask United Airlines or Proctor & Gamble what happens when you ignore people who use social media.

If you were watching the Olympics Sunday, you saw what I thought was a pretty good closing ceremony. If you lived anywhere other than the United States, you got to see the ceremony straight through without interruption. If you were unlucky enough to be watching the NBC television network, your Olympic viewing was interrupted by an insipid reality show called “The Marriage Ref,” and local news. In all, there was about an hour break in the viewing. For those living in the eastern time zone of the U.S., that meant they had to stay up until 1 a.m. to see the entire ceremony.

As one who closely monitors social media, I can tell you the Twittersphere was alive with complaints. I have no idea how many, but I can you there were thousands judging by how fast the hashtags #NBC and #NBCFail kept updating. And the anger wasn’t just over the decision to cut off the Olympics; it was also over the decision to bring Jay Leno back to the Tonight Show.

Here’s a sample of the tweets going out on #NBCFail:

• wtfgerard: RT @nNoela: NBC is continuing their Winter Olympics coverage with a new downhill event. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. #imwithcoco #nbcfail I give this tweeter credit for combining his anger on two events into one tweet.
• disappointedme: BOYCOTT LENO and his Olympic killing network. #TeamCoco #imstillwithcoco #NBCFAIL #RIKSHAZ9LIRK #SuckitNBC As a note: the hashtags “I’mwithcoco (Conan O’Brien) was the third most popular topic on Twitter Monday. That’s quite an accomplishment considering there are an estimated 50 million tweets a day.
• MONTANAinAZ: RT @ColorMeRed: Just to thank NBC for their exceptional coverage (sarc) of the Winter Olympics, my TV will be reprogrammed to everything but NBC #NBCfail This was a particularly popular tweet. I saw it at least a dozen times.
• lvnTrey: RT @ChefMark: Although sad that the Olympics is over, I’m happy that NBC’s reign of tyranny on my set is over! #NBCFail. Oh, and #shutupCostas

You get the idea. There was a lot of anger. And a lot of calls for boycotting NBC. The anger went viral pretty quickly. As I write this on Tuesday, it is still going on. If anything, the flames are burning brighter.

What surprised me is that I never saw any response from NBC to all of this. They did apparently use an application called TwitterFeed to send out positive sounding tweets about “The Marriage Ref.” TwitterFeed is an app in which you enter a bunch of tweets at one time and then schedule them to be sent out over whatever time period you want. Judging by the tweets, I would say someone decided to send a tweet about every 10 minutes.  You can often tell someone has done this because the tweets tend to be phrased alike. They stopped when several people called NBC on it.

Doing that is a violation of one of my social media rules: don’t ever pretend to be something you are not. The social media universe hates lying. And, it destroys credibility.

Getting back to my main point, I am shocked frankly that the once proud Peacock Network did nothing to calm down angry viewers. NBC is fourth place in a four-network race. They cannot afford to do something like this. This is not 15 years ago. Social media keeps things alive.

In NBC’s position, they cannot alienate their stakeholders. Those viewers have other choices. Fox, CBS, ABC and the hundreds of cable channels will all benefit from NBC’s decision not to engage with its viewers. It doesn’t appear NBC understands that. It’s sad.

I am one of the most active social media users I know. I have more than 5,000 LinkedIn connections, more than 8,000 Twitter followers, about 500 Facebook followers and over 100 on YouTube. I blog twice a week. I also use Plaxo, FriendFeed and some other sites. I should be doing this – it’s my business. I run a social media marketing agency. Would you hire someone to do social media if they didn’t use it?

I have some problems with social media though – or more accurately, the people who are now using it. So, they are:

• The people who invite me to join a site to which I already belong. Every site has a search function that allows you to check members’ name. Do that before you invite someone to join Facebook or LinkedIn.
• The constant creation of new sites. I have yet to see one that could replace LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube or Facebook. Look, this ground has been plowed already. I think those sites are here to stay. Maybe one of those four will be “AOL – The Sequel,” but I doubt it. That is not to say there are not some good sites, but enough already with the constant creation.
• The constant invitations I get to join those new sites. If I don’t respond, it means I do not want to join. Don’t keep sending invitations. It is annoying and a breach of social media etiquette. After three invitations, you go into my spam file, never to return.
• The growing number of multi-level marketing people appearing on social media. To paraphrase Shakespeare: spam by another name still smells as bad. Just because you are sending the information via a new medium doesn’t make it anymore believable.
• As long we are on the subject, no one works five hours a week and gets rich. Steve Jobs, George Soros, Warren Buffett and all those other self-made billionaires worked really hard to get where they hard. I suspect they are still putting in 15-hour days. The only people who make money off those schemes are those selling them.
• And one more point on that subject, you do not have to spend money on search engine optimization to get your webpage to the top of Google rankings. This blog is rated a top website by Google. It is consistently is on the front page of Google searches. I spent a lot of time achieving that, but no money. It just takes work.

Now that I have gotten that off my chest, I am curious what your social media pet peeves are. Let me know.

When I first thought about writing this rant, I was considering ripping Toyota a new one. The way the automaker has handled the public relations for its various relations recalls was nothing short of abysmal. I think the White Star Line handled the initial P.R. dealing with the Titanic’s sinking better than Toyota did its accelerator problems.

But as the New Orleans Saints can attest, being behind in the first half doesn’t mean the game is lost.

Full disclosure: I drive a 2000 Toyota Camry. Both my children drive Corollas. However, I have never received compensation of any kind from Toyota. The closest I have come to anyone from the corporate side was Monday, Feb. 8^th when Jim Lentz, president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, was asked a question I had posted as part of a Digg Dialog.

At any rate, yes, Toyota was slow off the mark with its response to the accelerator issue. The initial statement in which the company said customer safety was “very important” to them made me cringe. They should have said that customer safety was the “most important” thing to the company. Saying “very” made me wonder what was more important.

Since then, however, the company has recovered its equilibrium. Frankly, I think doing all of the recalls at once is very a smart tactic. It’s the band-aid theory of action – some people take a band-aid off slowly. The pain might be less, but it is prolonged. Or, one can rip the band-off quickly and get it over with. It hurts more at first, but the pain goes away faster.

The apologies have come from the top down, which is a good start. The leadership has been willing to take the heat. Lenz has been everywhere, which is smart. He seems unflappable, he is well-spoken and he doesn’t shy away from tough questions. All good qualities in the crisis team leader.

That’s what Toyota is doing – they are taking their licks all at once. Yes, it is painful at first, but they will put it behind them.

It’s not like it is the only auto company to recall defective automobiles. Here, from Reuters News Service, is a list of recalls from 1971 on:

• 1971 – General Motors recalls 6.7 million vehicles due to engine mounts that separated from the vehicle and impacted the throttle.
• 1981 – GM recalls 5.8 million vehicles due to loose suspension bolts that affected steering.
• 1996 – Ford recalls more than eight million vehicles to replace defective ignition switches that could have led to electrical shorts and engine fires.
• July 1998 – GM recalls close to one million Cadillac, Pontiac and Chevrolet cars because of fears the air bags may have deployed by accident.
• Aug. 2000 – Japanese tire maker Bridgestone Corp recalls 14.4 million ATX, ATX II and Wilderness tires of certain sizes installed on Ford Motor Co.’s Explorer SUVs and sold separately in stores. The recall applied to all tires produced at the company’s Firestone U.S. division.
• 2004 – GM recalls nearly four million pickups because of corroding tailgate cables.
• April 2005 – GM recalls more than two million vehicles to fix a variety of potential safety defects, most of them on cars and trucks sold in the U.S., which includes 1.5 million full-size pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles from the 2003 to 2005 model years with second-row seat belts that GM says may be difficult to properly position across passengers’ hips.
• Oct. 2005 – Toyota recalls about 1.41 million cars globally, including the Corolla and 15 other models, due to trouble with their headlight switching systems.
• Dec. 2007 – Chrysler LLC recalls 575,417 vehicles as long-term wear on the gearshift assembly could cause them to shift out of park without the key in the ignition. The recall involved 2001 to 2002 model-year Dodge Dakota pickup trucks, Durango sports utility vehicles and Ram van models and 2002 model-year Ram pickup trucks.
• Aug. 2008 – GM recalls 857,735 vehicles equipped with a heated windshield-wiper fluid system in the United States after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said a short-circuit in the system may cause other electrical features to malfunction, increasing the risk of a fire.

For the record, Toyota has recalled 3.8 million vehicles in the latest recall and 4.2 million since 1971. Since 1971, General Motors has recalled 20.4 million of its autos. Ford has recalled 8 million, while Chrysler brought the rear with 575,417.

If you remember, the other automakers often resisted recalls. The Bridgestone tire problems, for instance, came to light because of a 60 Minutes news report. At least Toyota admitted it had a problem and dealt with it.

The key now is how Toyota will handle the issue going forward. I have some ideas that I will discuss next week that I think could help.