Missing The Social Media “Target”

Jan 31

Missing The Social Media “Target”

by Kaitlyn Wilkins
Category: Digital Influence

As we allude to here in incessantly, one of the major hallmarks of Web 2.0 is the empowerment of the everyday citizen to affect change, amplify their own opinion and ultimately have their voice heard. Call them influencers. Call them citizen journalists. Call them whatever you want, but call em something.

Last week the blogging world (which has come a long way in terms of getting a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T from corporate America) got a reminder that there is still a ways to go. Amy Jussel, from the online community ShapingYouth.org, sent Target an email expressing her concern over a new series of Target ads, one of which displays a woman spread eagle over the Target bullseye. She received the following response:

â€œGood Morning Amy,
Thank you for contacting Target; unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with non-traditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.
Once again thank you for your interest, and have a nice day.â€

*Record scratch*

This incident underscores two points that I frequently find myself making:

#1 - Blogs and social media can and do drive mainstream media coverage of a brand or issue. Following the original post, news of the slight percolated for about a week and ultimately resulted in a New York Times E-Interview with Jussel, and a separate story, â€œTarget Tells a Blogger to Go Awayâ€ (1/28/07). That article not only resurrected an issue that had died away online, but also lead to amplified unfavorable brand coverage across high profile blogs from AdPulp to Jossip. We often get questions about how social media can impact mainstream media, and the Target/ShapingYouth ruckus is a great illustration of the symbiotic relationship the two share.

#2 â€“ The age-old â€œAre bloggers mainstream media or independent citizen journalists?â€ debate continues to rage. We saw this come up in our Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics discussion â€“ some bloggers like to think of themselves as true media outlets and want to be treated as such, and others see themselves as citizens who happen to have a popular platform to share their views and ideas and are fine with more informal outreach and interactions. Clearly there is no right or wrong answer to this â€“ but the outcry over Target’s failure to engage bloggers in the space under any auspices demonstrates the importance of, at the very least, respecting blogs as a powerful medium.

While Target told the New York Times that they do make exceptions to their rule, and are reviewing the policy, you have to wonder what kind of conversations this has lead to internally at Target. (For more, check out John’s great post on putting principles over policies.) Target, or “TargÃ©”, has a huge brand following â€“ and studies show that many (most?) of their â€œcore guestsâ€ are active in the social media space. Target shouldn’t just review your stance towards â€œnon-traditional media outletsâ€ â€“ embrace â€˜em! I’ll bet they’d love the result.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Digital Influence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 COMMENTS
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7 Responses to “Missing The Social Media “Target””

Yianni Garcia Says:
January 31st, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Can it possibly be true? Walmart is ahead of Target in social media. Now would be a good time to pitch Target with a social media campaign.
Kaitlyn Says:
January 31st, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Hi Yianni - I found this interesting comparison of Target and WalMart’s competing back-to-school Facebook plays by our friend over at Web Strategy by Jeremiah. (Spoiler Alert - Target comes out ahead!)

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/09/10/facebook-
sponsored-group-analysis-target-vs-wal-mart/

Perhaps the right hand should be talking to the left in this case!
MC Milker Says:
February 1st, 2008 at 2:07 pm
The left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing is nothing new…20 years in brand marketing taught me that!

What was missing at Target was a “customer service policy” - everyone is a potential customer, professional journalists, bloggers, vendors, service providers…everyone who comes into contact with any employee of Target should be considered a potential customer - which is why the response from press relations was so odd.

Having visited buyers at both Wal-Mart and Target many times, I find it odd that the “customer first” attitude evidenced by those departments hasn’t made it over to P.R.

LOL- some days it’s really bad to be having a bad day…you could end up in the NY Times!
Shaping Youth Says:
February 1st, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Hi all…Amy Jussel here, I agree with MC Milker, as I sure didn’t want to drag Shaping Youth into the NYTimes based on this brouhaha, and was reticent to even e-interview for fear of calling too much attention to ‘one ad’ vs. the bigger context of ambient advertising objectification (which is what the ORIGINAL post was about) http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=969

Brava to Kaitlyn for her insight on how corp. marketers could handle the blogosphere better…Look at the instance of Jott.com, for example…when they had some transcription glitches reflecting poorly on their product in the blogosphere, and someone even posted a “misjott” social media hub with hilarious examples of ‘misjotted’ voicemails…

Instead of dismissing blogger concerns or getting huffy and defensive, the CEO of Jott went ON the rogue site, left a warm, human, response along the lines of ‘hey, folks, we hear ya, we’re working on this and only in beta, so by all means hit us with your best shot so we can LEARN from it and improve our messaging and performance’ —

Voila! Case closed…Brilliant customer service, corporate PR, and kudos and praise poured in from new media hubs, both for the application itself, and the CEO’s handling of the glitches.

Now, since I’m not in PR…I have a question for YOU all…is it better to reframe/address skewed contexts of our org (Shaping Youth) or ignore it altogether and just let it run its course?

I tried the latter after the original post was hijacked into the ‘one ad’ vs. larger objectification sphere. But by leaving it uncorrected, it showed up as UGC opinion-poll banter making it appear it was all much ado about nothing…How can orgs guard against this without sounding defensive? Is there a way to protect a brand from misinformed minutiae other than ignoring it? Being a little guy, we could use some PR guidance here!
Anil Says:
February 13th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Maybe it’s got to do with the ‘credibility’ issue as in a blogger is a brand by himself/herself as opposed to traditional media outlets.

The point is if credibility can only accrue to ‘organisations’ an not ‘individuals’?

Blogging is powerful primarily because you get the choice to choose whom you want to read, a voice. This is not something traditional media can boast of, more so when they’re trying to reach out to almost everyone out there!

Rising Voices recently released a very interesting guide/report titled “An Introduction to Citizen Media” and the change it is bringing in its wake.
Shaping Youth Says:
April 11th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
I like that, Anil…and you’re right…choice is everything, as is CRED. I’d argue that it’s not size, but acumen and intelligence that matters in the sphere of influence…I think Citizen Journalism is only as good as its research allows…

One has to have trust, have patience, and find your gold nuggets where you can…amazingly, Shaping Youth has become ’small but mighty’ by representing the ‘massive middle’ trying to deconstruct all sides with analysis that’s mainstream and centrist vs. special interest group-driven. (of course that also explains why we’re broke and seeking funding! heehee)

I’ll check out the Rising Voices report! Thanks! Best, Amy
Bdfdwjfz Says:
November 5th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
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