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Airline lost your bags? Now you can pay to tell the world how annoyed you are Airline lost your bags? Now you can pay to tell the world how annoyed you are
(14 days later)
Much nonsense has been written about the supposedly democratising effects of social media. But a genuine if modest blow against The Man was struck this week when a man named Hasan Syed used Twitter's paid-for "promoted tweets" feature to vent his frustrations about a lost-luggage incident involving British Airways. The tweet was promoted into the streams of BA's followers in New York and the UK, thereby effectively turning the airline's own social media platform against itself:Much nonsense has been written about the supposedly democratising effects of social media. But a genuine if modest blow against The Man was struck this week when a man named Hasan Syed used Twitter's paid-for "promoted tweets" feature to vent his frustrations about a lost-luggage incident involving British Airways. The tweet was promoted into the streams of BA's followers in New York and the UK, thereby effectively turning the airline's own social media platform against itself:
Don't fly @BritishAirways. Their customer service is horrendous.Don't fly @BritishAirways. Their customer service is horrendous.
Within six hours of the tweet first being promoted, the blog Simpliflying reports, it had received 25,000 impressions on Twitter – though it's safe to say more impact came from the splash the story made at the BBC, Mashable and elsewhere. (Ten hours after the tweet appeared, BA finally responded.) Does this herald a new era in customer complaints, as JetBlue's head of marketing seems to think? Syed says he'll reveal tomorrow how much the exercise cost him, and if it's close to $1,000, as the BBC's reporting suggests, it'll hardly qualify as a tactic available to just any pissed-off traveller. Still, it's microscopic compared to what firms like BA spend on promoting their brand. And couldn't disgruntled customers band together – using social media, naturally – to make the cost per person much cheaper?Within six hours of the tweet first being promoted, the blog Simpliflying reports, it had received 25,000 impressions on Twitter – though it's safe to say more impact came from the splash the story made at the BBC, Mashable and elsewhere. (Ten hours after the tweet appeared, BA finally responded.) Does this herald a new era in customer complaints, as JetBlue's head of marketing seems to think? Syed says he'll reveal tomorrow how much the exercise cost him, and if it's close to $1,000, as the BBC's reporting suggests, it'll hardly qualify as a tactic available to just any pissed-off traveller. Still, it's microscopic compared to what firms like BA spend on promoting their brand. And couldn't disgruntled customers band together – using social media, naturally – to make the cost per person much cheaper?
Generally speaking, complaints about airlines are one of the more tedious aspects of Twitter – second only, perhaps, to the habit of tweeting the codes of the airports between which you're travelling, as in "SFO > EWR". (Please don't do this. Ever. You cannot begin to fathom exactly how little anyone cares.) They can be done with panache, as in this famous letter of complaint to Richard Branson, or the parody song United Breaks Guitars. Mainly, though, it's just people moaning. What makes Syed's promoted-tweet brainwave so deeply satisfying is the jiu-jitsu brilliance of using a corporation's own profile on Twitter – and the very methods that corporations use to try to insert themselves into our fields of attention – to broadcast a dissenting point of view.Generally speaking, complaints about airlines are one of the more tedious aspects of Twitter – second only, perhaps, to the habit of tweeting the codes of the airports between which you're travelling, as in "SFO > EWR". (Please don't do this. Ever. You cannot begin to fathom exactly how little anyone cares.) They can be done with panache, as in this famous letter of complaint to Richard Branson, or the parody song United Breaks Guitars. Mainly, though, it's just people moaning. What makes Syed's promoted-tweet brainwave so deeply satisfying is the jiu-jitsu brilliance of using a corporation's own profile on Twitter – and the very methods that corporations use to try to insert themselves into our fields of attention – to broadcast a dissenting point of view.
In this, Syed clearly shares a certain kind of outlook on life with a Yorkshireman named Lee Beaumont, who according to reports last week has made £300 so far from a premium-rate telephone number he set up specifically for telemarketers to bother him on. (Whenever a company asks him for a phone number online, he gives them the premium number, so he makes seven pence every time he's interrupted by a cold-call.) And I think this gives me sufficient excuse to mention, once again, my favourite fundraising tactic of all time: the Pledge-a-Picketer scheme, operated by Planned Parenthood of Pittsburgh, in which supporters donate money in proportion to the number of anti-abortion activists who gather outside its clinics. The more hostile demonstrators that show up, the more Planned Parenthood benefits.In this, Syed clearly shares a certain kind of outlook on life with a Yorkshireman named Lee Beaumont, who according to reports last week has made £300 so far from a premium-rate telephone number he set up specifically for telemarketers to bother him on. (Whenever a company asks him for a phone number online, he gives them the premium number, so he makes seven pence every time he's interrupted by a cold-call.) And I think this gives me sufficient excuse to mention, once again, my favourite fundraising tactic of all time: the Pledge-a-Picketer scheme, operated by Planned Parenthood of Pittsburgh, in which supporters donate money in proportion to the number of anti-abortion activists who gather outside its clinics. The more hostile demonstrators that show up, the more Planned Parenthood benefits.
It will be noted, correctly, that Syed's trick commanded so much attention largely because it's a new idea. If promoted-tweets-as-complaints become commonplace, they'll soon become much less effective. But the real point is that social media seems to keep creating these new opportunities for short-circuiting advertisers' messages. (Remember the 2004 Bush/Cheney slogan generator, ingeniously co-opted by liberals?) Attention is the primary resource of the online economy and if you discover a clever new way to steal a bit of mine in order to promote your brand to me, don't be surprised if I use the same method to retaliate when you annoy me.It will be noted, correctly, that Syed's trick commanded so much attention largely because it's a new idea. If promoted-tweets-as-complaints become commonplace, they'll soon become much less effective. But the real point is that social media seems to keep creating these new opportunities for short-circuiting advertisers' messages. (Remember the 2004 Bush/Cheney slogan generator, ingeniously co-opted by liberals?) Attention is the primary resource of the online economy and if you discover a clever new way to steal a bit of mine in order to promote your brand to me, don't be surprised if I use the same method to retaliate when you annoy me.
No, it's not the start of a popular revolution against consumer capitalism, but at least it promises to keep complaining fun.No, it's not the start of a popular revolution against consumer capitalism, but at least it promises to keep complaining fun.
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