The First Social Media World Cup

With the excitement building for the 2010 World Cup, it has dawned on me just how much I rely on social media for news and information about the tournament.
Back in the 1970s, when I was a child thrilled by the skills of Pele, Cruyff and Kempes, the satellite pictures from Mexico and Argentina seemed like a technological miracle.
Not every game was covered live on television, though, and the only other information came via the newspapers or potted profiles in my Panini sticker album.
How different it is today. My Blackberry mobile phone is constantly signalling Twitter and Facebook messages about every aspect of the world’s biggest sporting event outside the Olympic Games.
The Football Association (@thefadotcom) send Twitter links to England press conferences and photographs of facilities in the team hotel.
A Facebook friend sends me a You Tube video of the spectacular new Nike World Cup advert featuring Ronaldo, Rooney and Drogba – an astounding 14 million people have now seen it on the video-sharing site.
Telegraph football writer Henry Winter (@henrywinter) tweets match updates from England’s last warm-up match while broadcaster Gabby Logan (@Gabby_Logan) says she is nervous before interviewing Fabio Capello for the first time.
There are all kinds of insights and titbits you can glean from a multitude of sources. Football magazine @FourFourTwo tweets about the Dutch squad being banned from using Twitter and they report regular disparaging comments from players about the quality of the new World Cup ball.
On his Facebook page, USA star man Landon Donovan counts down to his team’s opening match against England as American supporters urge him to ‘kick some English ass’ in their comments.
This truly is the first ever social media World Cup and what a wonderful thing it is.
Of course there are some football fans who still live in the dark ages – as befits the world’s most secret society North Korea apparently has not allowed any journalists to cover their own nation at the tournament!

Christmas Number One decided by Facebook

So the power of social media has spectacularly destroyed the X-Factor’s vice-like traditional grip on the Christmas Number One spot.
Geordie teenager Joe McElderry, who won the top rating television music talent show earlier this month, would normally have been a certainty to have the Yuletide best seller on the back of his success.
But a Facebook campaign propelled American band Rage Against the Machine (RATM) to the top of the charts in an act of defiance against the influence Simon Cowell’s multi-million pound X-Factor empire has wielded over the music industry.
An astonishing 500,000 people bought the RATM single, Killing in the Name, to topple McElderry’s The Climb by 50,000 copies.
The Facebook page for the RATM campaign had almost one million members the last time I looked, many of them attracted there via discussions on online social networking sites like Twitter and interactive chatrooms.
What this demonstrates is the remarkable ability of the internet to bring people together to fight against something they disagree with.
And it has major implications for public relations professionals. It used to take time for action groups to organise themselves in opposition to new developments or environmental transgressors. Public meetings had to be arranged and householders visited to rally support and get people together.
Now it is easy to set up a website and send online messages to people regionally, nationally and even internationally to build backing for a campaign.
Supermarket chain Tesco have to battle a nationwide action group aiming to prevent it setting up yet more stores around the country to the detriment, the campaigners believe, of local businesses.
Unhappy passengers have banded together on websites to lampoon airlines and football supporters chatter away in cyberspace whenever they are unhappy about the way their club is being run.
PR people need to monitor these messages so they can counter what is being said in the never-ending quest to protect an organisation’s reputation.
But how do they tackle something like the monster created by RATM fans on Facebook?
Cowell was initially scathing of the campaign, leading to widespread condemnation of his perceived arrogance. Interestingly, he has since changed his stance and praised the initiative, even going so far as to personally congratulate the main organisers.
A clever PR move maybe but it remains to be seen whether the X-Factor winner will ever grab the Christmas Number One spot again to follow Shayne Ward, Leona Lewis, Leon Jackson and Alexandra Burke between 2005 and last year.
It makes you wonder what else can be influenced by the power of Facebook. Could the electorate band together to get a political party in power at the next General Election. Maybe dissenting voices on the social networking site could get together online to oust a Prime Minister.
A final thought. In 10 years’ time we might be talking about campaigns being started to break the hold of Facebook on popular opinion.