Instant Brand Damage for Amazon.com #amazonfail

Brands that have been opting out of the social networking craze should take notice of the situation Amazon.com found itself in over the Easter holiday weekend, when authors of gay and erotic literature took to Twitter to instantly raise awareness that the online bookseller had dropped titles with "adult" content from the website's best selling lists.

Angry that their books became de-ranked, with classics like The Well of Loneliness, Tipping the Velvet, Brokeback Mountain and Lady Chatterly's Lover disappearing, poular writers began alerting thousands of their Twitter follwers of the situation. A campaign to start a Googlebomb was initiated, an online petition gaining more than 15,000 signatures started, and bloggers took up the issue quickly, raising attention even further. The topic is being tagged on Twitter as #amazonfail

Zoe Margolis (@girlonetrack) the author of "Girl With A One Track Mind" began broadcasting her views about Amazon.com Sunday, saying to her Twitter followers that:

"This is a serious f****** issue and anyone that cares about censorship and sexual repression should be boycotting Amazon."

Within 24 hours the issue had reached mainstream news headlines and Amazon.com responded to the media calling the situation "a glitch in our system." The well-connected Margolis won her follwers attention, including media and celebrities such as Jonathan Ross who rallied to her cause, and she quickly became a spokesperson for the topic, appearing on Channel 4 news and offered commentary in The Guardian.

"You know what's great? A few hashtags and tweets result in something far better than a boycott: bad publicity - it always works," she Twittered.

If there was ever an example of why brands should heed the power of social networking sites, this could be the tipping point. The case shows how consumers can rally quickly to an issue and strongly express their views before a brand may even have a clue what is going on. It proves that brands that don't pay attention to the new power people have, are open to experiencing instant damage inflicted on reputation if they don't monitor conversations, and respond quickly.

While Amazon.com offered a short statement to the mainstream media, they have not responded directly to the thousands of people who expressed views on Twitter, with many saying they will boycott the bookseller. The online retailer has several Twitter identities, including @amazon, but has not used this communication tool to date. Many are saying they want more direct attention from the brand, and that the brief statement does not cut it. 

"I think the 'glitch' was in human judgement and the right thing to do would be step up and apologize," commented the Twitter user @yuricon. "What we want: Acknowledge a mistake in policy and in judgement, apologize, then allow us to make our own decisions."

 Watching this story unfold,

-Lisa

G20 Calms Down But Ideas Keep Brewing

Normal 0 Helicopters have now stopped circling overhead in London, as the world's leaders leave town following the G20 summit, but what remains is a brewing network of ideas and people who are inspired and hopeful to make changes that will solve issues of the economy, the environment, war, world poverty and many other agendas.

While it remains to be seen what kind of difference the G20 gathering will mean to our everyday lives, if anything, there has emerged, among some, a renewed sense that change for the better can be possible. This week, two happenings really got me excited and optimistic for what’s to come – when a group called we20  launched, and a group of 50 bloggers called G20Voice got to view the inner workings of the summit.

we20: Ideas For A Better World

We20’s aim was to get discussions going prior to the G20 summit about how solutions can be achieved for the major issues of concern, and put forth ideas and plans of actions that they hoped would win attention from the world’s leaders. To date, about 20 proposals on everything from the financial crisis to ending world poverty have been uploaded to the website, and the group is working to grow the grassroots movement online and offline. I posted a full write-up of we20 here, along with the insights offered at the launch by the economist John Kay.

The Blog-Eye-View On G20

Richard Murphy, who writes the blog taxresearch.co.uk, became the first blogger in history to be given an opportunity to question Gordon Brown, which was a fantastic moment displayed in front of the world’s media. The bloggers also interviewed Bob Geldof and other political and celebrity leaders, and saw Barack Obama’s speak.

Among the bloggers was social media consultant, and founder of the popular weekly networking group, The Tuttle Club’s Lloyd Davis. I saw Lloyd today following his exciting experience being part of G20Voice and got to hear his thoughts:

“What gets me is trying to understand what $1 trillion dollars really is, and how it will make a difference in our everyday lives. There is also a huge gap between the content of what was discussed in the communiqué planning, and how this information translates to ordinary people. The people at the top aren’t very good at communicating what the ideas mean to the rest of us and I think we need layers of communication to push through the concepts and better understand the complexity of what is happening. I don’t understand it all, and that leaves me, and others, to have to trust our leaders. But do we and can we trust these leaders? What also struck me is that here was a gathering of great leaders from 20 of the world’s leading economic powers, and not too long ago we were all in a tense situation of possibly killing each other. It is really important that we are at a point in history where they were able to sit down and talk to each other about the economy."

Davis has been blogging his thoughts from the G20 experience over on his blog Perfect Path.

Surrounding the G20 summit, was, of course, the thousands of people who have been protesting a multitude of issues throughout the last week. While violence got the majority of the attention, the protests managed to push the public’s thinking agenda toward key issues of jobs, the environment, war, poverty and more.

I was a participant in the protests this week and went along to both the Put People First rally, and followed along the Green Horse in a theatrically presented series of four parades called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to the Bank of England, and also spent some enjoyable time at Climate Camp. It was an experience. While I was, fortunately, not an eyewitness, instigator or victim of any of the violence that took place, I did come very close to getting “kettled” and was so glad I got out in time. I’ve posted my personal thoughts about this experience on my blog here.

Glad that the city feels back to normal,

-Lisa