December 9, 2010
When Santa Claus comes to town, the rules are simple. You watch out, you don’t cry and you don’t pout.
I put to you that in 2009 the social media marketeers ignored every single one of these rules, pedalling Christmas campaigns that involved risks, made people cry and yes, made them pout. For this reason, I propose last year’s social media marketeers did not want Santa Claus to come to town.
The offending articles
Item One
In 2009 Essex couple Jon and Tracy Morter diced with fire when they attempted to topple Simon Cowell’s UK Christmas Number One monopoly.
The couple used Twitter and Facebook to build a groundswell around shunning X Factor winner Joe McElderry’s single, The Climb, for Rage Against the Machine’s 1992 release, Killing in the Name.
The result? More than one million fans joined the Facebook page and Killing in the Name reached the top of the download chart just in time for Christmas.
Item Two
US blogger Jill Kocher wasn’t worried about bringing tears to ours eyes when she launched a campaign to bring SEO to the charities that needed it most.
Kocher, SEO Manager at Groupon by day and blogger for WebPieRat by night, found local-level charities had little knowledge of SEO and optimisation.
Following her findings, she set out on a mission to provide back links to charities in featured posts in the first instance, followed by arming them with the skills to embed optimised terms into their sites in time for Christmas 2010.
Item Three
Fashionista definitely wanted you to pout. Last year the augmented reality tool was developed for fashion retail sites to help shoppers virtually try on their Christmas party outfits and share the pictures with friends via Facebook.
I think the evidence is clear, social media marketeers do not want Santa Claus to come to town.
