Timeline of the Greenpeace anti-KitKat social media campaign

In class on Monday we discussed web video and how organizations use it to disseminate their messages. One of the examples we looked at was Greenpeace's new video aimed at pressuring Nestlé into dropping its use of palm oil in the production of KitKat bars.



Nestlé immediately demanded that the video be removed from YouTube citing copyright infringement. YouTube agreed and removed the video -- thereby creating a stir that eventually got traditional media outlets interested in the story. Nestlé made matters worse with a number of angry comments it posted to its Facebook fan site. As a result, Nestlé is getting hammered with negative comments on its Facebook site. I'm not even sure you can still call it a fan site at this point... What's most amazing to me is that Nestlé has apparently abandoned its Facebook page. The company hasn't reacted to the onslaught of criticism since last Friday's comments.






For a timeline of the events that lead to this PR crisis, check out this great slideshow:

NESTLE KERFUFFLE on Prezi

For a an excellent analysis of Nestle's crisis response (or lack thereof), check Jeremiah Owyang's post & also this SocialMediaToday report.

Also check out the Brand Builder's 2 part series on How to make sure your Facebook page doesn't become a Trojan horse (part1, part2).

Spring 09 Student Podcasts

Here's a fresh batch of podcasts from this semester's students! Each student team was instructed to produce a 5-10 minute podcast on an issue pertaining to class. Teams were given the option of either interviewing an expert on the topic of social media or organizing a panel discussion on a social media and PR issue. This semester, we relied entirely on open-source software (in this case Audacity) to produce the podcasts. Here are the results:

• Interview with Janis Krums, the twitter user who shared the first picture of the Hudson River landing - Reanne, Austin, Ginny, Ben
  
• Interview with Cynthia Baker, President and Founder of Accolades PR in Austin, TX - Monica, Jaime, Ailynn, Alejandra
• Panel on Twitter - Sara, Joe, Jesse, Kirby
• Interview with Lauren Perdue, a social media professional with Peer Buzz in Austin, TX - Alex, Stephanie, Ashley

The Wikiscanner - an Anti-Astroturfing Tool?

When we talked about wikis last class, I mentioned the wikiscanner, developed by CalTech graduate student Virgil Griffith. Wired ran a story on it last month which is worth reading.

The wikiscanner was designed to shed light on anonymous Wikipedia edits by identifying the source of those edits. It does so by checking the IP address of the editor against a database of IP addresses in order to locate the organization that owns that particular set of IP addresses.

Now what does that have to do with PR, or this class? Remember astroturfing from your intro to PR class? The open nature of Wikipedia carries with it the disadvantage that it can easily be used by organizations, governments, and individuals to push their own agenda and engage in astroturfing.

With no easy way to check the sources of the thousands of Wikipedia entries and edits, "wikiastroturfing", unfortunately, has become an all too inviting option for businesses and individuals with shady ethics.

The wikiscanner's ability to out such incidents of astroturfing makes it a powerful new tool in the fight against unethical PR and business practices.