Staying Social Through Boston's Bombings.

When tragedy strikes and is highlighted on a national level, many feel the need to get involved. Whether you're a few blocks away or a few thousand miles away, the concept of humanity usually overrules any doubts you might have about ignoring a horrible situation. Because of this, we are innately inclined to help.

Social media has provided us all with a more immediate way to help, with real-time communication being possible for tens of thousands of people at a time. It truly is spectacular to see communication enabled among that many people from such different areas at once. Even a decade ago, I'm sure this possibility was not expected.

However, this type of interactive environment does have its ups and downs.

Boston and Social Media.

First of all, I'd like to note the fact that the happenings this week have evoked a great amount of nationalism among citizens of our country. As impressive as this is, it caused members of many online communities to put on their law enforcement caps and try to solve crime through their computers. The effort is appreciated, but they aren't police officers for a reason.

Due to suspected conspiracy theories that developed over the course of a few days, along with analysis of pictures released by the media to the public, a few ordinary citizens falsely had blame cast on them. There have been a few accounts of those citizens receiving much harassment regarding the crimes they did not commit. It doesn't need to be explained why this is an issue, as it is a violation of privacy for those affected and obstruction of justice on behalf of the information that came to be trusted by major media outlets.

There's something to be said for the more positive outcomes of social media's involvement in the news, though. Many were able to stay involved in the action as it developed, thanks to updates on Twitter, live feeds posted on Reddit (Live Feed), and links to the Boston Police Department's activity scanner being sent to anyone interested. Updates were real-time, with some of the updates even coming from Boston residents that were close to the police action itself.

News networks like MSNBC, Fox New, and especially CNN drew much criticism for being late to provide updates and information on the situations in Boston. Despite the fact that any news network stops reporting live well before the scene in Boston really escalated, many people were frustrated and outraged by their total absence from the police chase. This turned out to be of no issue for most people, though, since Twitter, Reddit, and the police scanner, along with a few local journalists, provided more than enough content to keep anyone interested informed.

Politics and tragedy aside, the way these events played out indicates just how news and online journalism could be shaped in the future. With urgent situations like this, interested parties didn't care about where they were getting their information from, as long as they were getting it. Videos, press releases, and articles would have been too long to keep attention and inform viewers, especially when all of those resources take too long to create.

The Internet certainly proved itself as worthy competition for major news outlets, which are often criticized for their biases and focus on ratings. News networks are businesses, so they do need to make money, but how can they compete with the vast amount of free information that others provide in times like these?

The main way that news outlets can keep up would be to not try and monetize the major news events as they happen. When searching out updates on situations like the manhunt in Boston, people weren't flocking to their televisions to stay informed. Instead, they took to the Internet, where names without faces were keeping everyone informed. If CNN had kept one to a few of its reporters on standby for the night, they could have stayed with the story better and provided their followers with better, more credible information.

Boston's tragic week has to be the event that has best-exposed the discrepancies between online media and televised news, and the major news networks should have some time to learn from their mistakes in handling it. In the future, look for them to be more responsive to major events, especially if they want to satisfy their ratings-driven objectives.

Cheap Feats.

A few days ago, a post on Reddit attracted much attention. This specific post was the picture of a receipt from Olive Garden, supposedly the result of a family being comped by the restaurant for their recent woes. The daughter autonomously told the waiter that her grandpa's house had just burned down, and Olive Garden made sure their meal for the night was free.

Brandjacking

Much can be said for brands that truly treat their customers right. However, many were skeptical that this picture was the product of a hoax. Comments on the Reddit thread speculated that the picture was fake, the company hired the poster for publicity, or even that they set up the situation in the store. Many Internet-users happen to be quite cynical, so it's no surprise that there were many doubts about the situation.

Whether or not it is true that Olive Garden is at fault here wouldn't be known unless someone admitted wrongdoing. Simply denying involvement, even if true, does little to curb the doubts of the opposing side of any situation. The real topic worth discussing, though, is how could this "brandjacking" tactic be utilized more effectively, if at all.

Internet users despise corporate sponsorship in their websites. They don't like clutter by itself, but when it is being advertised at them against their will, they see it as wrong. However, many companies might find that a lot of their target markets frequent free sites like Reddit, Imgur, and other social sharing sites. At this point in time, though, it doesn't seem like any certain company has figured out how to effectively navigate these waters.

The problem with companies on these sites is that they stick out very easily when they try direct advertising. So let's pretend for a second that the Olive Garden incident was, indeed, staged. What did they do wrong? What could they have done better?

For starters, the message portrayed in the story is fantastic. It's selfless and considerate, and the average person can always appreciate that. However, when posed as a setup, it seems like the company is toying with the emotions of everyone, belittling the woes that could actually be a reality for someone else. It comes off as manipulative and a little evil. Once this is pointed out, the fight to correct this train of thought is an uphill battle in a very downhill-type environment.

If a company was to actually try and use this approach of marketing, which seems very guerrilla in nature to me, they would need to establish a reputation on whichever site they were utilizing. Reddit and Imgur show how long users have held membership with their sites, and often what they comment or post, so other users can evaluate the authenticity of the user based off of that information alone. They would need to use this otherwise-established account for a one-time stunt that could draw much attention to wherever they see fit. Nothing too outrageous, though, or else users won't believe what they see.

The online community is often a difficult crowd to reach with marketing materials, but this Olive Garden controversy is a good example of a company that, by accident, may or may not have gotten closer to figuring it out.