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	<title>UserGlue UserBlog &#187; Viral</title>
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		<title>An Opportunity for Twitter, Recognized as Aching Mothers Band(wagon) Together</title>
		<link>http://www.userglue.com/blog/2008/11/17/an-opportunity-for-twitter-recognized-as-aching-mothers-bandwagon-together/</link>
		<comments>http://www.userglue.com/blog/2008/11/17/an-opportunity-for-twitter-recognized-as-aching-mothers-bandwagon-together/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:05:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Russ</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Community]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Networking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Viral]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.userglue.com/blog/?p=84</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I swore that I would not jump on the Motrin bandwagon myself and talk about how awesome it is that all of the moms came together to rally against the big bad advertisement.
So, I won&#8217;t.
Most people are observing the groundswell, sharing the videos, talking about how powerful Twitter is, and the voice of the consumers [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I swore that I would not jump on the Motrin bandwagon myself and talk about how awesome it is that all of the moms came together to rally against the big bad advertisement.</p>
<p>So, I won&#8217;t.</p>
<p>Most people are observing the groundswell, sharing the videos, talking about how powerful Twitter is, and the voice of the consumers really is.</p>
<p>I say that&#8217;s only partially true, and to be honest, the voice of the consumers was only effective to a point&#8211;and then largely ineffective.</p>
<p>Yeah, I said it.</p>
<p>I think the voice of the &#8220;Motrin Moms&#8221; did a great job of &#8220;getting their way&#8221; and getting the advertisement pulled.</p>
<p>And Motrin did a great job of saying, &#8220;We heard you&#8221; to a select handful of people who are a small margin of the users of the web, but who have the power of Twitter, the blogosphere&#8211;and may, or may not, actually sell a few of those damned slings that seem to get everyone so riled up to begin with.</p>
<p>But, as <a href="http://twitter.com/gabrielle/status/1010045449" target="_blank">Gabby Hon</a> poetically said:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;Okay motrinmoms, now that you&#8217;ve &#8220;won&#8221;, so what? What did you honestly achieve via your twitter tantrum?&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Anyone who&#8217;s dug a little deeper into this blog will know how much I love the &#8220;So What?&#8221;, so I&#8217;m totally hearting what Gabby&#8217;s saying.</p>
<p><a href="http://buzzbean.blogspot.com/2008/11/motrin-hurts-so-good.html" target="_blank">Michael Rivera</a> takes things a step further and makes suggestions (which, by the way, seem to be in short supply out there&#8211;lots of criticism, but few people trying to be part of the solution) for what Motrin could do:</p>
<ul>
<blockquote>
<li>Build the Motrin Mom&#8217;s Advisory Board</li>
<li>Own the idea of &#8220;mommy ergonomics&#8221;</li>
<li>Co-brand with a baby sling manufacturer and send out free, and branded, baby slings to all the offended twittermoms, with an invitation to join the Motrin Mom&#8217;s Forum.</li>
</blockquote>
</ul>
<p>Good, solid suggestions&#8211;for Motrin.</p>
<p>In fact, I&#8217;ve been saying all day that this whole fiasco is a brilliant opportunity for Motrin!</p>
<p>I mean, OMG! Like, thousands of &#8220;Motrin Moms&#8221; all started twitter-screaming at the top of their lungs that this is ridiculous! This is hurting my feelings! Motrin doesn&#8217;t get moms!  Slings are totally FTW!</p>
<p>All. Weekend. Long.</p>
<p>Oh&#8211;for an ad that was released on September 30th of this year, for what it&#8217;s worth.</p>
<p>Somewhere out there, one rather vocal&#8211;and rather popular&#8211;twitter/blogger/etc. social mom got her feathers ruffled and shared those feelings outward and the pond rippled from there.</p>
<p>But, as Gabby says:</p>
<p>So what?</p>
<p>This is where the Twitter opportunity comes in to play.</p>
<p>The joke I made today about all of this to <a href="http://twitter.com/cchastain" target="_blank">Cindy Chastain</a> was:</p>
<p>Twitter was great to allow them to bully and megaphone their way into getting attention&#8211;from Motrin to the New York Times to <a href="http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2008/11/moms-give-motri.html" target="_blank">David Armano</a>, <a href="http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/11/17/motrin-mothers-groundswell-by-the-numbers/" target="_blank">Jeremiah Owyang</a> and anyone else who could catch on.</p>
<p>Good for them.</p>
<p>Bad for Twitter.</p>
<p>The reason this is bad is because this group of &#8220;Motrin Moms&#8221; had a somewhat collective voice&#8211;they were all pissed off. Most likely, this was all for similar reasons, however, there appeared to be no true leader identified&#8211;regardless of who posted what first to uncover this egregious ad that had been out for nearly 1.5 months.</p>
<p>They had no Jesse Jackson of their own.</p>
<p>They had no single point of contact to make some demands, to stand up as an organized mob and get more than just an ad pulled down.</p>
<p>So, to a point, they achieved an unknown&#8211;yet mutual&#8211;objective. But, now, they go away.</p>
<p>Fade&#8230;fade away&#8230;</p>
<p>(Oh, and thanks for all of you standing up and providing Motrin with an idea of who all the right people are to talk to&#8211;seriously, you just made it really easy for them, and I would personally relish that opportunity if I were them!)</p>
<p>So What?</p>
<p><strong>So, Twitter, your opportunity is here. Allow the disorganized mobs to organize. Allow them to find their leadership and voices and share within their sub-communities inside of your Twitterverse.  Allow new communities to form, grow and thrive with focus and purpose.</strong></p>
<p>Heck, I bet you could even make some money at it.</p>
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