When Viral Campaigns Go Bad: Killer Cars, Fast Food & a How-To

Category Social Media | Comments Off

Ok, so I realize this is a horrific title and probably a bad set of ads to put together, but considering the topic is bad viral content, I decided it was perfect. Anyway, I think these serious screw-ups examples have some great lessons to teach us.

Ford and Its Evil Car

These have been around a long time, but just so you know what I’m talking about:

I highly doubt I need to explain the problems with this campaign, but just in case, you might want to have a look at the second video (not for the squeamish or cat lovers):

Shockingly, the official word is that the first ad was approved while the second was not. I have my doubts, and so do a lot of others. It actually turned out like the PUMA fiasco, but you can be the judge.

Regardless of whether the reaction was intended or not, animal lovers or anyone who vaguely likes cats was horrified, the marketing world was horrified, and the backlash became so fierce Ogilvy & Mather released a statement assuring the public the commercials was computer generated.

Just for the record, Chrysler made the same mistake.

Burger King Has a Bad Chicken, Or Does It?

When Burger King launched its ‘Subservient Chicken’ Campaign, I don’t think they realized just how twisted the general public is. Well, that, or they did and were counting on it. Anyway, basically, it’s a guy in a chicken suit who’ll do whatever you ask. If you really like it, you can even make a chicken mask of your own!

Some people were completely horrified and the ad world seemed to be abuzz with the idea that a company would release something so evocative. I would like to argue that they were aiming for children with a mild rip-off of Simon Says, but using words like ’subservient’ really kills that idea.

Were These Link Bait / Viral Campaigns Successful?

Well, if you type ‘Ford Ka Cat’, ‘Ford Ka Bird’, or ‘Ford Ka Pigeon’, you’ll notice these campaign had no trouble generating links. In fact, many of the authority sites mentioned something about the videos and millions more shared them.

As for the odd Burger King content, Snopes.com and the Wall Street Journal report that only 20 people were told about the site and a few TV ad featured the address. However, the site had received an estimated 15-20 million hits. The Barbarian Group who worked on the project state it made the cover of Business Week and “sold a lot of freaking chicken sandwiches.” That’s not bad at all, considering the backlash created at the time.

How To Fix Negative Viral Content, Link Bait, and Badly Behaving PR Campaigns

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Before making a move to put out the fire, I think it’s important to weigh the seriousness and extent of the damage. BK’s attempt at serving up chicken your way wasn’t horrific. In fact, it seems to have accomplished everything it set out to do. So, worst case, they had to calm a few frazzled nerves and maybe give out a few coupons for free chicken. Was there much to fix? Well, no. Not really.

Ford’s mistake is a little different. (Keep in mind, these were released a number of years ago.) They made a number of people very angry and created a large amount of buzz. The other problem is that they couldn’t simply give away a few pieces of chicken to solve their problems (although, I would have been first in line to scream complaints if they were giving away a new car).

So, they had to endure the firestorm and do what they could to minimize the effects. They explained what they could and attempted to take responsibility for the rest.

But here’s the thing: Has everyone stopped buying Ford cars? They might have lost a few sales, but people are still buying cars just as much as they did before. In fact, I would venture to guess the recession hit them harder than the backlash from their campaign. Had it of been a small company dealing on a local basis, they may not have been so lucky.

For businesses like Kryptonite Bike Locks, negative content can be extremely hard on your business. The topic, in this instance, proved their products were essentially useless, and to make matters worse, the content circulated directly through the intended target audience. Not saying it killed the company or cut sales right off, but I’d be willing to say it slowed sales down considerably.

It’s also important to note, however, that Europeans are a little more…uh…open minded when it comes to advertising. While an ad like that may cause chaos in North American, it’s merely frowned upon and ignored elsewhere. This is not to say there’s more approval. The ad agency just isn’t roasted at the stake for it.

Immediate Reaction to Negative Content

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When you first realize link bait or viral content has gone pear-shaped, you want to deal with the damages and try to minimize its effects as much as possible. This is usually when a junior exec or external team member gets blamed for screwing up and apologies are made. Someone might even get fired to make it look good.

Don’t just stammer and make whatever excuses come to mind, however. Handle an angry member of the public the same way you would an angry client. With a bat Delicately!

Start by listening to the complaints. All of them, all the way to the end. It only makes people angrier when you interrupt. (If you’re dealing with them online, this likely won’t be too much of a problem. Oh, and hopefully you put some type of monitoring or alert system in place prior to launching the content. If you didn’t, use wine boxes from the liquor store to move your breakables because they have great cardboard inserts.)

Validate what that (those) individual(s) are saying, do your best to take responsibility, and make things right. Exactly how you go about this will depend on the exact situation, but so long as you let the audience guide you, you should be fine.

This doesn’t mean let them boss you around. But, by listening to the audience’s needs and concerns, you should be able to determine your first few moves (In the United Breaks Guitar situation, the airline would have walked away unscathed if they had just paid for the damage!).

It’s important to deal directly with the source of negative feedback. Many times, the person spreading the negative content isn’t the person who experienced the problem. If this is the case, simply explaining the situation and asking nicely is often enough to have them reconsider their position.

If they were the one wronged or offended, try to solve the problem and ask them nicely to spread the word. Yes, you made a mistake poor judgment call and were in the wrong, but you personally contacted them and fixed everything. It doesn’t hurt to go the extra mile here either, even if you weren’t wrong.

The worst things you can do include (as many companies have already experienced):

• Threaten to sue a bunch of bloggers. This just makes the story more popular and you end up looking like the bad guy.
• Argue with the masses. There’s one of you, and likely millions of people who have heard the story…you do the math.
• Pull down the link bait/viral content without providing any sort of an explanation or acknowledging what you’ve screwed up done poorly. You just look really guilty and lose any benefit you might have gained from the experience.
• Follow it up with the exact same content that got you into hot water in the first place. This makes a normal mistake into pure idiocy, and that’s never a positive trait for any company.

With any luck, other people will pick up the concept and make a bunch of parodies to help ease the tension and suffering (PDF). Yikes! Parodies? Oh noes!

Well, don’t panic. I don’t see these as necessarily being a bad thing. (There’s no such thing as bad press, remember?) Yes, this will likely spread some negativity about your company, but being able to laugh at yourself and your mistakes is an important trait.

The way I see it, these things have a way of making a horrific story that brings shame and shudders from a target audience into something they’ll chuckle about and pass along. In other words, it takes the edge off. Plus, you’ll likely get traffic and links.

Collateral Damage (and Clients)

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Chances are the evidence links to your failed link bait/viral content will be scattered across the Internet like seeds in a watermelon, and no matter how hard you try, you always find one popping up somewhere. So, when you can’t make it disappear, bury it!

Now, I really shouldn’t have to go into detail here since you all should have ideas as to how to do this, but I will anyway. Here’s a few ways to bury that content and help people forget about the incident (and yes, there are many more; you just need to get creative!):

For Brands/Businesses:

• Bury the bad by doing something good. In other words, give to the needy, solve world hunger, or save a whale and tell the world about it! With all the bad PR you’ve been getting, more people are watching you than ever. In fact, if you’re going to do something particularly risqué, consider having something you can release right after.
• Distraction can be a powerful tool, so drop another piece of link bait or viral content (NOT the same kind you just got in trouble for!) It’s sort of like a magician. If people watch what the left hand is doing, they soon forget about the right. Releasing a new product or service line can also help.
• Visibility. Show that you’re not going to hide from your mistake by putting yourself out there. Even using the situation as a learning tool for others isn’t a horrible idea. Just get out there and show others that your company or site has the same value it did prior to the catastrophe.
• Forget about it. It’s only a matter of time before everyone moves on to the next big thing. Get over it, get over yourself, and move on. You know the saying that goes ‘others don’t worry or think about you near as much as you do? Well, it’s really true.
• In the worst-case scenario, use the three Rs: Rebrand, Relaunch, Remarket. Keep in mind, however, that people still know who you are! So, if you’re hyper-local (ie. Do little to no business outside of your hometown.) this likely isn’t going to have any effect.

For SEO/SMO/Marketing/PR Firms:

• Panic! (Yes, I’m kidding!)
• Explain the above information to the client: while it’s not the reaction you’d hoped for, negative PR is not the end of the world. The clients are going to be hostile, they’re gonna be mad, but do your best to listen, acknowledge their feelings/opinions, and do what you can to rectify the situation. If you’ve been able to cover up your mistake move quickly enough, now would also be a good time to explain the steps you’ve already taken to control the situation.
• Blogging, article marketing, press releases, and content generation. Just try to stick to the safe subjects!
• General link building, and lots of it! By this, I mean directories, commenting, content programs, guest blogging, and all the usual systems you use to build a profile up quickly. I should mention here that you’ll need to be careful. Building too much, too quickly, and particularly all from the same source can be a big mistake.
• Use a variety of media. So many people get so hung up on written content they forget about videos, images, and other types of content that are still out there.
• Distribute free ebooks, white papers, reports, and other items. They generate links/buzz and help establish your client as the authority.
• Target the terms and long tails of the responses (“Ford Ka cat”, for example) can give regular keywords a boost and help offset the negative content as well. However, these are a lot more difficult and often require you to be a bit sneaky to pull off. This isn’t always an option, but I’m throwing it out there anyway.
• Do what you normally do, but do it with caution. Just don’t let those negative results stay at the top.

This brings me to the next question:

Should SEOs have a solid understanding of Social Media?

But that’s a great question for another post!

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The Dark Side of Viral Content and Link Bait

Category Link Building | 5 comments »

Breaking news and free stuff always makes good viral content. Humorous or articles that hit the emotions of your readers in some way work well too. And so long as the piece is well written, any of us who have worked with content programs should recognize it pretty quickly.

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I guess that’s what’s interesting about this type of content. Even though we know why it’s created, we often can’t resist sharing it with someone, discussing it, linking back, and giving the writer exactly what he or she wanted.

Others have a serious dislike for link bait and viral content, and honestly, I can’t see why. The only time I have a problem with link bait or viral content is when it doesn’t fulfill the promise made in the title.

Well, I shouldn’t say that. Some get irritated when they fall for it (also known as the ‘why didn’t I think of that’ syndrome), but it doesn’t generally affect the reader in a negative way. If anything, it should irritate you and make you think about the topic.

That being said, there is a dark side to viral content and link bait.

Viral Content Gone Wrong

Viral content can be priceless when it attracts the right crowd and drives the buzz in the right direction, but what happens when it goes wrong? While this often happens with controversial issues, sometimes even innocent viral content can have unexpected negative effects.

Say, for example, that you create an innocent blog post promoting a contest for a local charity. It goes well at the start and begins to generate a number of donations and a fair bit of excitement around the cause.

Now, imagine for a moment that a member from a particular religion, country, sex, or ethnic group reads the piece and gets offended by a particular angle to the contest, the subject matter, or maybe something to do with the charity itself. The next thing you know, a little bit of viral content becomes a PR nightmare for your company. After all, this type of reputation glitch doesn’t disappear easily or quickly.

While this will certainly increase the buzz surrounding the contest and the charity, it might not work to your advantage. And unless you’re quick thinking and have the resources to fight it, things could get pretty nasty and someone (likely you) is going to get into trouble.

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Viral Misfires

If you’ve created controversial link bait, the backlash from your ‘target’ should be fully expected. But what happens when content attracts the wrong crowd all together? Now, the ‘link is a link’ crowd isn’t going to care. Much. But what happens when it just happens to grab a lot of scraper links when the site really needs a few good authority links? What happens if it just generates some crappy links and barely any traffic at all?

Failed Viral Content or Link Bait

Any SEO who has been pushing to get a client site going understands the pure frustration of this, particularly if they’ve put a fair bit of time into the creation and planning of the content. Clients often don’t understand that audiences are very fickle.

Sometimes, articles you expect to take off and spend a lot of time on start to collect dust almost the instant you click publish. Then, the client is phoning and breathing down your neck because they’re not getting traffic or links and they spent a fair bit of money to create the content.

The next time, you publish something you scraped together in a hurry and it goes crazy. Suddenly, you’re dealing with comments and maintenance on a day when you hadn’t planned on it and really don’t have time. Did I mention the client is calling and freaking out because they’re getting traffic they weren’t expecting? (Believe me, it happens!)

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Pushing All the Right Buttons

Viral content and link bait is very much like a puppet show in text. The writer (the puppet master) knows just how to pull the strings to make the puppets (the targeted readers) to do what he wants. While this is generally harmless and often is nothing negative in the least, someone who is very good at it almost makes the situation eerie. I mean, when you think about it, it’s really no different than some of the greatest speakers in the world. The amount of power they have over others is almost scary.

Now, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has witnessed or experienced content strategies go bad. Have you had viral content or link bait go horribly wrong?

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Are You Optimising for Optimization? Google Spells Drive SEOs Crazy

Category Google | 21 comments »

Last week, Google caused quite an uproar in the SEO community when it decided to tweak its engine’s spelling. In fact, several big SEO bloggers made mention about Google’s spelling and the Americanizing of search results.

(Tracy)

Now, as a copywriter, these results were almost as good as sending me a bouquet of flowers. Almost. I love mysteries, I switch between UK, US, Canadian, and Australian spellings frequently, and combining them with search just made the phenomenon that much more fun.

So, after a pretty heavy-duty chat with some smart people and a bit of digging, I’ve come up with some interesting explanations. (It’s my understanding that Google has changed its mind on some of these, but I thought it was worth a look regardless.)

Optimizing for Optimisation

The initial word pair to cause a ruckus was ‘search engine optimisation‘, which brings up ‘search engine optimization‘ results. Hmmm! Knowing full well that Google is moving towards producing more relevant and local results, this was completely puzzling.

I initially thought the switch was due to Adwords revenue. I mean, there’s bound to be more people including ‘optimization’ in their PPC campaigns than ‘optimisation’ right? And more competition means the CPC would be higher right?

Well, after a short discussion with a few SEOs including David Harry, I took off the tin foil and discovered it was pretty easy to see why. Google Trends and Insights both show Britons are searching for ‘optimization’ more frequently and UK SEOs are targeting the ‘z’ when optimizing their sites, so Google is giving people what they want.

Don’t Forget About the User

Malcolm Coles dug up a number of other good examples. He noticed that, when searching for ‘whether’, ‘weather’ results were shown with the definition of ‘whether’ in #1 and BBC weather being second. I don’t know about you, but this looks right to me as a user, an SEO, and as a writer. Here’s why:

If I were searching for ‘whether’ without any additional words in the query, chances are I would be looking for what part of speech it is, what synonyms are available, how it’s used and other word mechanics. Otherwise, what would the intent be?

In Malcolm’s screen cap, you can clearly see the first result (Dictionary.com’s definition) would satisfy this need nicely. If I wasn’t looking for the word’s mechanics and had meant to look for ‘weather’, this need is satisfied with the BBC weather result in second place. I have the same opinion of ’stationary vs stationery’ and ‘license vs. licence’ and think the spelling causes confusion among regular users more than some people think.

Could A Combination of Signals Trigger Different Results?

(Alexbrn)

The results Malcolm got for ‘colouring vs coloring’ were quite fascinating. Google Insights and Google Trends both show UK users search for ‘colouring’ more than ‘coloring’, but they also show the u-less form is gaining slightly in popularity while the ‘u’ form of the word is decreasing.

When I did a search for ‘colouring’ and ‘coloring’ through .co.uk, I noticed only the ‘u’ page was affected, and in fact, 6/10 results were optimized for the ‘u’ form or both. I’m sure this will vary for everyone, but still, we can see the results are mixed.

This leaves me with user data. I know my son is a huge fan of Disney, Pixar, and other popular cartoon-like movies, so I can’t see UK children being much different. I wonder if a higher number of clicks on some of that content have something to do with it? I’d say so.

Lastly, we know Google is starting to recognize relative terms. After all, some pages I’ve optimized for ‘copywriting’ on my site rank better for ‘copywriter’ and vice versa. In the end, if I were searching for ‘coloring’, or ‘colouring’ for that matter, what exactly would I be looking for? And don’t the results satisfy that request? Not saying the big G is perfect, but it doesn’t seem to be as horrible as some would like to think.

What Does This Mean?

After looking at the various SERPs, I can’t help but think we’ll be seeing a lot more of this very soon. And, if SEOs want to compete, they may want to include these ideas in the planning of their future optimization projects. I also think SEOs will need to spend more time considering the user and what they might be doing rather than focusing on numbers alone (this is not to say that some don’t already do so).

As much as I will likely get roasted for this, I have to say that I think these changes are a good thing for the user and will force webmasters and SEOs to put a lot more thought into the sites they work on. That’s never a bad thing.

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Google Ever-Flux; its a crazy world out there

Category General | Comments Off

Pete Laird asked us;

“Have you any idea how often they move the goalposts as i have noticed massive drops and rises in my own sites position over the last couple of months. No matter how much I try to get my head around it I cannot figure out why there would be such massive changes, sometimes 300+ up or down.”

Well, once upon a time in Google-land we used to get index updates around once a month and then it started going to weekly and ultimately daily/on-the-fly. Along the way some one coined the term ‘everflux’ which essentially denotes the ever changing state of the index.

Often these days we will see new pages get some early love from the ‘query deserves freshness’ temporal nature of the indexing/retrieval process. Thus often times we will see pages jump around in larger fluxuations. If this is happening with a core target term and say, the home page of a well established site, then I might be a little more concerned.

It is not really unusual to even see established pages fluxuate, but certainly not movement of 300 positions and back again on a consistent basis. Some reasons for fluxuations can include;

Index updates; if it is new pages being indexed or spam pages being removed, there is always a constant stream of new pages in the index. This can also be seen in movement for total results on a given search query.

Indexation; if it is your site (global relevance) or sites that link to you, often pages are removed from Google’s index or shipped into whatever the current iteration of the ‘supplemental index’ is over at Google. These can certainly have an effect on your rankings.

Link profile; also there is a temporal nature to how Google apparently values inbound links to a page. Meaning that older links often tend to degrade over time and if your site is built upon older links, then as they are devalued, rankings drop. Further to that you may have been getting power from links that are no longer indexed in Google, thus more slippage. You might have links from sites that themselves have been devalued (directories come to mind) – your link profile can often be a cause.

Data Centers; Google has many data centers that serve up search results and often will switch them in and out when working on them (for data and infrastructure) updates. Often times we may be seeing a different data center (also geographically segmented) when checking rankings with various tools which can also skew rankings.

Welcome to Ever-Flux

In the end, most often large fluxuations are due to a newer/less stable page (or site) that hasn’t cemented itself and it will level out over time. There will usually always be a certain amount of movement even for more established pages, simply not larger ones as our example here (300 positions).

As long as the competition is creating more pages and building more links, one is never safe…. Movement is the norm

(if you’d like to ask a question, leave a comment here; Ask the experts )

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