Dan Savage is not exactly a household name, but I think it would be fair to say a lot of Americans know at least something about him. To some people, he is the man who redefined Santorum; to others, he is a sex columnist; and to others still, he is the man who co-founded and publicized the It Gets Better Project. To me, he is all three. I hate Rick Santorum, so it makes me laugh to hear people talk about his "Google Problem;" I listen to Dan's podcast and read his blog every week; and I was so excited to see how far the It Gets Better Project has come. A lot of people call or write to Dan telling him that he has made them realize its okay to be LGBTQ, but after yet another gay teen committed suicide due to bullying, Dan and his partner, Terry felt like they had to do more to encourage teens who were feeling conflicted or suffered from bullying because they were different. So they produced the first It Gets Better video and posted it to YouTube:
According to Dan, the It Gets Better Project is really Terry's (his husband's) brainchild. But the thing is, Terry does not have the 138,00 Facebook Fans that Dan has, he does not have hundreds of people calling and writing him every week. When Dan says jump, his fans say how high? In Dan and Terry's video, they talk about a lot of things: how they met, how they came out, how horrible high school was, and how worth it was to stick out the bullying. The purpose of the videos are to show LGBTQ teens (and everyone who suffers from bullying) that they are not alone. It has been a year and a half since the project first began, and there are now around 220,000 It Gets Better videos on YouTube. It is impressive enough that so many people have made these videos, but I find it amazing that even people like President Obama have made one:
Now, there is even an It Gets Better Book, and every day people are still uploading new videos. According to Bernoff, "the groundswell [is] a spontaneous movement of people using online tools to connect, tak[ing] charge of their own experience, and get[ing] what they need - information, support, ideas, products and bargaining power - from each other (x)." Hundreds of thousands of people care enough to make these videos, and even more are watching them and becoming more hopeful about their own situations.
In my opinion, the best advice Bernoff gave in chapters 9 and 10 of Groundswell, was advising his readers to "muster up the humility to listen and tap into the skill to take what you've heard and make improvements (194)." I would imagine that some people have a very difficult time reading negative reviews of their products or services without getting upset or seeing it as a personal attack. If the business is smaller, it might be easier to make changes suggested by the groundswell, but on the other hand, people working for larger businesses might have an easier time reading the negative reviews in the first place. This is because they would be further separated from the product itself, and therefore even if they are a part of the company that produces the product or service, they are more of an outsider than a small business owner who might be too close to be able to process negative reviews and make changes to their product. As made evident by the Credit Mutuel example, there will always be people who have something rude or unhelpful to say, but it is worth subjecting yourself to the unhelpful comments to get to the genuine suggestions. For example, I am a Facebook fan of the local grocery store, Living Earth, which caries a lot of local and organic produce, as well as vegan and vegetarian options. A lot of people (in my opinion, inexplicably) seem personally affronted when someone says that they are vegan or vegetarian, and the other day one of these people decided to post a lovely picture expressing his opinion of vegan food on the Living Earth Facebook page:
The man who runs the Facebook page takes it very seriously and updates all the time, but I think he responded very well. Instead of removing the picture or responding angrily, he made a joke. This might not be the right approach for every company, but I personally thought it worked well for Living Earth. Everyone in charge of social media for a company has to evaluate how to appropriately respond to negative comments, reactions cannot be the same for every type of company.
Overall, it is important to remember that your company is meant to produce something for a customer. Regardless of the size of your customer base, if you make the groundswell feel like you care about them, they will care about you a lot more. Earlier tonight, I saw a Google Chrome commercial that really features their customer base:
The slogan for their new campaign line is "Make It Happen." The description says "No matter who you are, the web can help you do anything. This year, use the web to make it happen and take life head on. Rock and roll!" No where in the description does it say anything along the lines of use Google Chrome, and the commercial features their actual customers. Its entirely about the customer, and though a lot of companies are realizing they must make ad campaigns like this, but this is the best example I have seen.
I did not even watch The Grammys last night, but I was completely blown away but some of the things that people said about the winners and performers online. First of all, I love Bon Iver, and was excited to see him recognized by winning two awards. I was a bit confused when he was even nominated for Best New Artist last night, considering he released his first album four years ago, but his work is beautiful so I think he deserves a win none the less. Over the summer, I was lucky enough to see him perform at an outdoor show in Mountain Park, and shed a few tears as I listened to him perform:
I know his music isn't for everyone, but I was absolutely blown away by some of the awful things that people had to say about him after his acceptance speech.
In my opinion, he seemed a bit awkward, but humble. Who cares if you haven't heard of him? I haven't heard of everyone who has been nominated for a Grammy either, but that does not mean I'm going to storm over to my computer and tweet that I hope that person has been raped. You read that right. Raped. Somebody tweeted that this man deserves to be raped because they personally believe he should not have won a Grammy. Thankfully, I do not actually know the person who wrote it, but instead read this lovely comment via the tumblir now devoted to the things people tweeted in outrage when Bon Iver won over Nicki Minaj (who one tweeter commented deserves to win because of her nail polish), the Band Perry, J. Cole, and Skrillex. Personally, I would not have cared if people were just angry that someone they had never heard of won a Grammy, but the fact that some members of the public think that wishing rape on a man they do not even know is an acceptable thing to do is beyond upsetting. As far as I can tell, there were also plenty of people confused about who Paul McCartney is, but luckily no one seemed to be wishing him bodily harm.
Bon Iver haters dont seem to be the only music fans confused about what rape and domestic abuse are actually like. A couple of days ago, HelloGiggles published an article called "I'm not Okay with Chris Brown Performing at the Grammys and I'm Not Sure Why You Are." I read it and agreed with everything the author said. In my opinion, Chris Brown should be banned from ever releasing another album, let alone performing at the Grammys. I know he was young, but after I saw the picture of what he did to Rhianna, I truly do not understand how the incident has been pretty much forgotten. This has nothing to do with how I feel about Rhianna music (negative), or Chris Brown's music (more negative), but I think that people need to realize how serious domestic abuse is. People, especially teens, look up to people like Chris Brown, and when he gets away with things like this they think it is acceptable. So all of that being said, I saw something extremely disheartening (to say the least) when I logged on to Facebook this afternoon and saw that someone had posted a Buzzfeed article that was literally entirely made of people tweeting things like this:
How horrible. After reading all of these collections of tweets from last night, I feel as though I have seriously lost faith, not only in humanity, but in the groundswell. It feels like every day, there is a new article about cyber bullying, and how to stop it etc. Maybe being able to hide behind your computer has given people too much confidence to say things that they should not even be thinking, let alone saying to cyberspace. I like taking advantage of the groundswell when it comes to things like consumer reviews, but today I feel like I've read somethings that I cannot un-read. To quote Joan from Mad Men, "It takes a brave person to say something anonymously." Things are rarely anonymous in cyberspace, but it may as well be if you are writing to thousands of strangers.
I found this weeks reading very interesting, especially because personally, I use user reviews all the time when shopping for any type of new product. Sometimes, when I see products advertised on TV, I look up online reviews for things that I would not even be interested in buying just out of curiosity. Bernoff mentions that "83 percent [of the public] said they trusted recommendations from friends and acquaintances, and more than half trusted online reviews from strangers. At the same time, trust in ads continued to plummet (102)." Since I began looking for product reviews online, my trust in advertisements has certainly diminished. I was already extremely suspicious, but now that I can look up actual users opinions so quickly, and have found that the products that seem too good to be true pretty much always are, I now never buy things without looking up reviews. And really, why would I? Of course, I would be more likely to trust the opinion of someone I know rather than anonymous online reviewers, but that is not always an option. Even though I benefit from the groundswell when researching new purchases all the time, it was amazing to me that online reviews have gone to far that now even cancer patients are using the internet to exchange information about the best clinics, medications, etc. That being said, I was even more surprised to see that according the Bernoff, "There's no proof - yet - that online buzz leads directly to sales in every industry (92)." If people with terminal illnesses are using the groundswell to find out where to seek medical advice, what other evidence to people need to prove that online discussion about pretty much anything effects sales?
I was expecting to see at least a paragraph about companies putting fake reviews of their products or services, since I am sure that Bernoff must know about this unethical practice. I would have been curious to learn if he knew of any companies that have gotten caught doing this, or if their are any companies who employee people specifically to write fake user reviews on websites that are positive in their favor and negative reviews on their competitors products.
