• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Margie ClaymanMargie Clayman

Marietta, OH

  • About Me
  • Marketing
  • Librarianship
  • Random Musings
  • Contact Me

The evil twin dilemma

May 26, 2010 by Margie Clayman 1 Comment

I was looking through Twitter posts this morning, as I am wont to do, and I saw a post from an account labeled BPGlobal. The post was something along the lines of, “Just spilled salad dressing in my lap. Not sure how to clean it up.”

I was pretty much stopped in my tracks. And I guess that’s the point.

Later today, as serendipity would have it, I saw a post by Outspoken Media’s Lisa Barone regarding that exact account (though sadly not that exact post. You can’t win ’em all).

In fact, the BPGlobal account is a satire of a thing. All of the posts are sardonic.

A lot of weird things can happen in the world of Social Media. I remember reading about a woman who posted as an Exxon customer service representative for about a year till someone realized she had no real affiliation with the company. That was a beneficial account. In the case of BP, this is an evil twin on the loose.

The question Barone asks is the question I would ask too. Why isn’t BP doing anything about this, or why didn’t they act on it sooner? And that raises a debate. What do you do when a phantom account springs up on Twitter or Facebook or somewhere else?

Barone’s suggestion to BP is to link up to the phantom account, which actually is run by people selling t-shirts to raise money for the clean-up. That would be a great way to help clean up the company’s image in addition to creating plain ole good PR.


Be careful not to slap fans in the face

Sometimes, the risk in Social Media is the exact opposite of what BP is experiencing now, and more along the lines of what Exxon experienced with their excellent “customer service representative.” Sometimes, especially on Facebook, where I suppose fan pages can still be created at least as of now, people create pages to support a specific brand or company. One of the most famous examples of this is the page that 2 fans created for Coke. Now, some companies approach these fan pages and say, “Hey, I need you guys to shut this down. We’re going to create our own corporate page now.” And you can’t really argue with that. You want to be able to tie in your page to what’s going on across your brand and marketing campaign. However, if you ask 2 “fans” to cease and desist, you are not only running the risk of upsetting them, but you could also upset all of the people they had already driven to the fan page.

In the case of Coke, the company did an excellent job of incorporating what the 2 fans had done while making it clear that theirs was not an “official” page. This likely increased Coke’s “street cred” a great deal, and it kept an active fan page active.

The take-away

Whether they’re out there to build you up or tear you down, there may be twin Social Media accounts out there. Part of the research that needs to happen when preparing to launch a Social Media campaign is determining on a corporate scale how to deal with either scenario. It’s a new kind of marketing and brand diplomacy. Can you make it work for you? Or will that bearded evil twin undo all of the good that you have done?

Filed Under: Marketing Talk

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. that Marketing Chic says

    June 1, 2010 at 1:19 pm

    From what I heard, BP did ask Twitter and the account holder to take down the account. The dialogue (obviously an exaggeration):BP:We do not appreciate your use of a twitter account against our company. Fake BP Account: Well we don't appreciate you spilling oil in the ocean.- for once I agree.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Post: « So many flip-flops I feel like I’m at the beach
Next Post: does efficient = good? »

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • Seeing Double: African American Literature
  • Book Review: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
  • Book Review: Land of Lincoln, by Andrew Ferguson
  • The portrayal of the infertile woman in entertainment
  • Chapter 3: A Weird Thing Happened Today

Recent Comments

  • Delores Baskerville on Are you locking out blog subscribers?
  • frank c tripoli on Book Review: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
  • Lyv on #30Thursday number 10 (we’re in the double digits?!?)
  • Fitoru on New Recipes, 2013
  • Anna Wyatt on Help me petition to deactivate driver-side airbags for Little People

Archives

  • February 2021
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • April 2017
  • October 2016
  • July 2016
  • April 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • December 2014
  • October 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • February 2014
  • December 2013
  • October 2013
  • August 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2007
  • April 2007

Categories

  • Book Reviews
  • Crafts and Charity
  • Gardening for Renters
  • Marketing Talk
  • Molly Maggie McGuire
  • Musings
  • PassionPlayers
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Footer

marjorie.clayman@gmail.com

   

Margie Clayman © 2021