Yesterday evening our team worked with Walmart and Signature by Levi Strauss & Co., using Twitter and the hashtag #sigjeans, to bring attention to a wonderful Mothers Day makeover opportunity and a contest for free cruises.  Needless to say, the campaign was a huge success and the #sigjeans hashtag trended as one of the most popular topics being discussed on Twitter for the evening.  Thanks to Signature by Levi Strauss & Co., the following moms celebrated an amazing Mother's Day gift!

Toni - Springdale, AR
Brandy - Newport, NH
Margaret - Velva, ND
Shannon – Edmond, OK

The purpose of this blog posting is to begin a discussion about the future of community and how we preserve the integrity of the conversation without excluding it to a trusted few.

We were fully aware of the potential for abuse when utilizing a hashtag.  While we’ve done similar campaigns without incident, we have always been aware of the potential for spammers to begin using a popular hashtag that many are following to insert their own messaging or spam.  Last night, after the #sigjeans conversations were complete and the contest was over, spammers began to append this hashtag along with a few other popular hashtags #startrek, #lobster, and #nerdprom.  Even though the conversations around #sigjeans were wrapped up, we continued to monitor the hashtag and once we noticed they were being abused we began to immediately remove the conversations from Elevenmoms.com, all of which took about 10 to 15 minutes.

Unfortunately, with the more aggressive abuse of Twitter, the following seem to be our future options:

1. Limit the conversation to only trusted users.
2. Run all comments through a queue for manual approval before going live.
3. Utilize filtering technology to try and catch spam comments.

While all of these options have pros and cons, they also all seem to remove both the “social” and “community” out of social community.  Twitter is a great platform for facilitating real-time conversations and I strongly believe brands and consumers should be utilizing social media to connect and engage.  But with the rise in abuse, I suspect brands will become increasingly hesitant to utilize these tools without strong filters and exclusions.  And while abuse does not surprise me, I am very shocked and disappointed by a small number of influential users who should be leading constructive dialogue with brands but choose instead ridicule and belittlement. (For instance, I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve heard the Motrin Moms story told as an example of brand ignorance and “mommy power” rather than brand engagement and influence.  After all, they did remove the campaign and apologize all within about 48 hours of understanding the unintentional message of their commercial.)

At Rockfish we just hosted a very successful Mind of Moms Summit with the purpose of connecting companies specifically with women who are active in social media.  We recognize that as social media continues to grow and evolve that brands and consumers need to work together toward an engagement that is both authentic and transparent. 

The speakers at our Mind of Moms summit represent different perspectives on some very important topics.  Yet, they were all very polished in their point of view and articulate in expressing it.  They demonstrated grace in recognizing that there is so much room for different opinions and approaches that can all be appropriate in context of the brands and communities involved.  It’s my personal hope that it will be these types of ladies who lead the way forward and that the growing abuse doesn’t hijack what could be the most significant opportunity for brands and consumers to engage ever.

Groundswell author Josh Bernoff was in Bentonville recently and just posted a blog about his experience titled: "Why Walmart will Succeed in Social Applications."  We've had the privilege to work with Walmart on the Check Out Blog and Elevenmoms.com.  It's nice to see Walmart recognized for their initiatives in social media!

We had the cool privilege of working with Tyson Foods in launching their blog dedicated to hunger relief (hungerrelief.tyson.com). Today Tyson posted an entry titled Hunger in Austin--Something you can do to help. In addition to bringing awareness to the issue of hunger and poverty in Texas, Tyson Foods took their posting a step further by engaging their community to make a difference. For every comment posted on their blog, Tyson offered to donate 100 pounds of food (up to a 35K pound truckload). The response was overwhelming. As of the timing of this post, Tyson has received over 500 comments in less than 24 hours! Great job Tyson using social media to bring awareness to an important issue and then engaging your community in a positive response.

We've constantly got a number of pratical jokes going on around the office.  Most are petty and trivial, though occassionally one will rise to the level of outstanding.  Recently there's been an exchange of pranks between one of our programmers and designers.  Lesson learned, never mess with the guy that knows Photoshop.  Corey showed up to work last week with the following website published on his behalf:  http://www.winadatewithcoryglanton.com.

It may not turn out all bad for him though.  He could actually get some submissions!

On Friday I blogged about two of my personal mistakes at Rockfish and the lessons I learned from them.  I used the word “failures," but in reality a person can only fail if they don’t learn something that makes them better.  In fact, failure can actually be a good thing because it causes you to refocus.  If we are not failing at Rockfish then we are not trying new things that continue to push us to get better.  Theodore Roosevelt said, "The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything."
 
At 67 years old Thomas Edison’s entire laboratory went up in flames.  Most people would have thrown in the towel at that age after that kind of tragedy.  Edison taught his son that “there is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew."  Then three weeks later he goes on to deliver the first phonograph.  Some of the greatest offensive players in baseball (Babe Ruth and Reggie Jackson for example), also led the majors in strikeouts.  Charles Goodyear spent his entire life experimenting with rubber, eventually creating a process that would ensure it wouldn’t become brittle in the cold and melt in the heat.  He died in debt.  Most at his funeral would have considered his life a failure.  Today nearly 300,000 Americans earn their livelihoods in rubber manufacturing which this year will produce $6 billion worth of products. The whole huge apparatus owes its existence to the invincible little fanatic who might have died a bitter man, but didn't.  "Life," he wrote, "should not be estimated exclusively by the standard of dollars and cents. I am not disposed to complain that I have planted and others have gathered the fruits. A man has cause for regret only when he sows and no one reaps."

Let me give you two reasons why the failed attempt at running a traditional advertising agency as part of Rockfish was, in the big picture, not a failure at all:

1.  Silver Joe’s Coffee was created.  Our Creative Director at the time, Cameron Clement, is one of the most talented brand developers that I have ever met (view his site here).  He had a passion for creating a coffee brand that would appeal to outdoor enthusiasts.  Why not?  Silver Joe’s was spun-off into its own company and has been growing ever since.  This week the first Silver Joe’s store was opened in Tokyo (see photo above) with 8 more planned for this year.  How cool is that!


2. Meeting Steve Clark.  I met Steve in the very early days of starting Rockfish.  Steve had recently purchased an advertising agency.  I was starting an interactive agency.  We both liked the idea of having a full-service agency.  We decided to merge the companies.  Even though the advertising agency portion of Rockfish didn’t take off like we had hoped, partnering with Steve was absolutely the right thing to do.  Steve has become one of my best friends and mentors.  Much of our success at Rockfish can be attributed to his involvement in the company.