Social media. It’s all the rage and it is being incorporated into the Public Relations campaign as the new must have. But is it causing more trouble than good? Kony 2012 set out to prove that PR could achieve good through the dialogical platforms, but when April 20 came and went and so did all the hype. So what happened?
The Invisible children proved how viral marketing can ‘make’ a campaign. It had everything in the name of social media to make it spread with success. The emotional heart clenching 30 minute video sucked the world in using Facebook to make everyone feel like an activist. Celebrities like Rhianna and Justin Beiber even jumped on board, helping to generate hype and add credibility. Millions of people got involved which led to the niave assumption that Public Relations could achieve global peace through social media. this optimism was soon squashed when others jumped on board the viral marketing game, proving WOM isn’t always so reputable.
Social media ‘made’ the Invisible Children, but it also helped ‘break’ them. Kony 2012 waited too long and it only needed a couple of short months for the otherside of the story to spread through cyberspace. Who really are the Invisible children? and what do they support? What is behind the adorable and naive five year old boy in that video? Lack of transparency from the organisation made them highly susceptible to criticism.
The campaign found itself at a standstill when Film maker Jason Russel was caught running around naked and supposedly engaging in sexual gestures due to a mental breakdown. Facebook lashed back with an anti-Kony campaign, blogs and online news spread what was really going and where the millions of dollars raised were really heading. All of a sudden Kony was not in Uganda, The LRA were a mere two hundred strong, military intervention was the master plan and only 30% of every dollar was doing ‘good’. The main thing that should have rung alarm bells was the mass media never bothered picking up the story. People began to stir and ask questions; why are we supporting something we know so little about?
I have to admit i dived into the ignorant bliss of united activism, but I just as easily fell out of it. Suddenly supporting the invisible children seemed reckless and impulsive resulting in the world losing interest fast. It was so easy to press ‘like,’ link the video to a friends page and send a bundle of money into cyber space than to actually get involved. So when April 20th came was it really a shock that majority did not show up? All in all Kony 2012 seemed to be one big PR experiment that the world so desperately wanted to believe. Are these relationships and friends we make through cyberspace really going to lead us to world happiness? The answerto this question generally leads to dismay and Kony 2012 proves this. Time will tell, but PR is going to have a rough ride gaining trust online when it can so easily be shredded apart.
SOME SITES TO CONSIDER
