I recently read about an article that shows a perfect example of the power of social media in marketing. A young girl created a Facebook event for her birthday and neglected to make it a private event. Unfortunately, shortly after posting the details that were available for everyone to see, instead of the expected 15 guest responses, it seemed like she was about to have one of the largest 14th birthday parties in history. 21,000 people had responded, some of which included fake profiles of celebrities such as Justin Bieber.
Thankfully, the event was taken down and now police must monitor the area on the date in question, Oct.7, to make sure thousands of people don’t try to cram into that poor girl’s home. While I’m sure she’s learned her lesson, I looked at this story from a different perspective, but of course I don’t have to worry about my mom grounding me for life.
If a young girl could unintentionally send a message, reach thousands of people and see an amazing response, what’s to stop any one of us from tapping into the same social media channel on purpose and doing the exact same thing if not more? As well, this situation provides us with the reminder to be clear on our target market. Not just how to identify them, but how does one connect and send the intended message. However, in some scenarios getting an exponentially larger result is not necessarily a bad thing. Social media is such an important tool in the area of promotion, and can be used by any organization/individual. Now I know this subject may seem like old news to some, but all you have to do is google “facebook” or “social media” and you’ll find a mass amount of results.
To see the original article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1313565/Facebook-blunder-sees-21k-guests-agree-turn-schoolgirls-party.html