#WhosGonnaSellOut their Twitter accounts for Verizon?
“The agency is representing Verizon wireless and its “#WhosGonnaWin social media campaign. The idea is that participants will Tweet a total of twenty times during the playoffs using a mixture of their own words and some prescribed phrases. The company wants the Tweets to seem “organic” while meeting the specific objectives of the campaign.”
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Despite the fact that a big percentage of my Twitter eighty-thousand plus Twitter followers are unwanted fakes I am occasionally contacted by marketers wishing to utilize my social media “reach” to promote this or that brand. More often than not these are online casinos or daily fantasy sports sites. However, last NFL playoff season a national advertising agency reached out to me about participating in a campaign during the playoffs for “a major communications company”. The agency was offering retweets and “shout-outs” from current and former athletes and big-time media personalities like Adam Shefter and Jay Glazer as well as prizes such as autographed NFL gear and electronic devices in return for my dispensing canned Tweets on a pre-determined schedule. I wasn’t even the least bit tempted to participate. I’m not above promotional Tweets. I do them for sponsors of this web site on occasion – and I will continue to. It’s part of what sponsors like Boone’s Tavern and 5280 Shirt Shop count on me for. But I see these small, local sponsor businesses differently than a major national corporation and I feel like my followers don’t mind so much if I promote them in subtle ways. I saw Tweeting on behalf of a large company using language that they prepared for me as a sort of violation of the unspoken contract I have with my Twitter followers. I saw it as selling out and I still do.
Once again this season I was contacted by the same agency and once again I declined to participate in their promotion. The agency is representing Verizon wireless and its “#WhosGonnaWin social media campaign. The idea is that participants will Tweet a total of twenty times during the playoffs using a mixture of their own words and some prescribed phrases. The company wants the Tweets to seem “organic” while meeting the specific objectives of the campaign.
While I ended my conversation with Verizon with a polite “thanks but no thanks” somebody I know continued his conversation with them long enough to recieve a contract from Verizon. Kindly, he provided me with a copy of the contract so that I could share its contents with South Stands readers. This way, when you’re scrolling through Twitter and you see the hashtag #WhosGonnaWin you’ll be wise to what’s going on and equipped to weigh whether or not to continue following the folks who bit on Verizon’s offer.
Personally, I see social media and Twitter inparticular as a pretty pure form of honest communication – not a place for promotions vieled as sincere excitement. I am inclined to block / unfollow people who would compromise their accounts in return for some ticky-tack incentives from a faceless corporation. I can understand, though, how some Broncos fans could be tempted to participate in this campaign. How about you? Would you sign this contract?
