Its really easy in the heat of 'battle' to lose all sense of perspective ( I am sure Sun-Tzu would have something to say about this), to forget your position relative your comrades and colleagues, to be so buoyed with bloodlust that you ignore all personal safety and drive in for the kill.
Usually, on a battlefield, its only when the fighting has stopped that the vultures, circle for the spoils, and villagers from the nearby town pick over what remains looking for objects of value. Not so in today's virtual battlefields.
Its with this i draw you to Nestlés FAIL (internet parlance) on Facebook. Their foray into social media was met with a barrage of protests about formula milk, baby orang-utans and palm oil. If social media is good for one thing, then its good for a virtual lynching. Nothing can excite a mob more than a cause, with an avenue to vent it, especially if the avenue requires little effort on their part.
Hats go off to activists who brave poor weather to protest, even more to people who devote their lives to causes. But on this sliding scale of commitment, a social media lynch mob rates pretty poorly. Its the protest equivalent of switching from "strictly' to 'Dancing on ice'. So it was with Nestle. Since it requires no effort to stick the boot in, hundreds of 'fans' all starting swarming all over Nestle like a tour group from weight-watchers at an 'all you can eat' buffet.
Now from this 'carnage' there was a number of things happened, namely, the vultures didn't wait until the battle had ended before picking over the spoils, they were there almost immediately as the battle waged. And this vulture, comes in the form of the 'social media expert', who seeing Nestlé stagger under the blows, are only too keen to offer their services.
Nestle did themselves no favours to resist these carpet-baggers, by updating their Facebook status, mid-battle, to say 'Social media - we're learning as we go'. So I guess they invited these ingrates to tea. However, it goes to show you the lack of integrity of these people (hardly surprised there).
The question I need to ask is, where did these social media experts come from? You really must question these self-styled titles, and treat them with as much suspicion as someone, like these people from "The Social Media Academy" whose only motivation to comment was to try and drum up business.
As Orwell says: Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket
Giddy up!
Update:
As the post is oh so current...her is a list (ongoing) of companies hoping to tout their services. Identified as such through their blatant posting of URL's in their comments, etc
Tank PR - http://www.tankpr.co.uk/
Contently managed - http://contently-managed.com/
RGC Media - http://www.rgc-media.com/nestle-fail
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