by Geoff Livingston
What better way to role into the Thanksgiving holiday than to poke a little fun at some turkeys? We can all use a laugh. The following list represents some of 2009’s biggest Turkeys in social media.
1) Ashton Kutcher: Really? Really? Did we really make this guy into the Twitter icon of the year? Dear God, help us all.
2) Jim Edwards, a Ketchum executive, who bagged Memphis on Twitter before rolling into FedEx HQ for a big meeting on digital media. Whoops!
3) Social media experts who got relentlessly bagged throughout the year, and rightly so. They never got beyond Twitter or Facebook.
4) Michael Arrington: I’m getting tired of the theatrics, from Le Web to the endless embargo drama to the libel thing. Hell, the guy even hangs out with adults that still play with puppets. C’mon!
5) The Obama Administration: The promise of Gov 2.0 was overwhelming, and the incoming president and his team did nothing to quell the hype. The end result? Real bureaucracy crushed hopeful audacity. Now Obama has to deal with the Nobel Peace Prize fallout. Poor fellow.
6) Social media conference organizers and agents who continue to turn the other cheek on potential female speakers. Big ole turkeys!
7) Miley Cyrus for the Twitter quitting rap song. I hear you, Miley, but was all of this drama really necessary? Just quit and move on.
8) Corporate America: For continued failures in social media adoption. This one came in via an anonymous DM on twitter: “No one I work for gets (or even wants to get) social media.” All bark, no bite. Control means more to CxOs.
9) The NFL: The league that likes to control it all (pull up those socks!) goes even further! I’m not a football fan, but as a marketer does banning Twitter really make sense? Fans love real sports identities and their updates!
10) Peter Shankman for taking Jim Edwards to task about his Memphis tweet, then doing the exact same thing to Rochester, NY nine months later for the 2009 Northeast Regional PRSA Conference. Shankman spent the first five minutes of his lunch keynote apologizing for his hypocrisy. Fortunately for Peter, it didn’t get widely tweeted.
Geoff, the more I read your stuff, the more I like you.
Ahhh you made my China Thanksgiving the best….thank you my friend.