Social media hits IS the headlines – Part 1
Social media…what began as a platform to share photos, stay in touch with old friends and to organise Saturday night’s social agenda, has merged into mainstream media.
News stories more often feature social media than not. Journalists seem to be increasingly reliant on using Facebook and Twitter to access sources, capture quotes relating to a story and to gather a celebrity perspective on current events.
But as well as being the voice and commentator of the story, social media IS the news too.
The start of 2012 has seen social media dominate the headlines like never before. Here are a few of the stories that have piqued our interest at Liquid Graphic.
Sneaky Snickers tweets
Albeit naïve to think that social media channels are free from commercialisation, Twitter users were up in arms last month at cheeky celebrity product placement tweets.
Rio Ferdinand, Cher Lloyd, Katie Price and Ian Botham all tweeted followers posing with Snickers bars and quoting the strapline from Snickers recent advertising campaign: ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’.
We’re not sure how successful Snickers found the activity, but it did succeed in re-raising debate on the labelling of advertising under existing fair trading laws. And advertisers should beware as the Advertising Standards Authority extended their remit last year to govern marketing communications via social networking sites.
Like us though, you may be less concerned about guerrilla marketing techniques and more concerned about the decidedly dodgy photos that accompanied the tweets. More than a few of Ferdinand’s followers lost respect for him that day…
Regarding compliance, a Snickers spokesperson released the following statement:
“To comply with social media regulations a reveal tweet was used and this went out within an hour and a half of the teaser tweets going live to ensure Twitter users knew they were enjoying promotional tweets.”
So Snickers, cheeky or sneaky? Our view: it’s all way too obvious to need a label, and way too dull to actually give it one. But compliance is king.
