The great potential of Petition Marketing
by Joseph Reaney
Here’s a question: how do you feel about Paris Hilton? Personally I have nothing against the pointless, insipid, spoilt, undernourished, narcissistic, empty-headed, fame-hungry little brat… but I know others feel differently.
When Ms. Hilton was found guilty of drink driving in 2006, her PR team decided to harness the power of public outcry in a campaign to request her pardon. The Free Paris Hilton petition – which includes the incredible declaration “Paris provides beauty and excitement to our otherwise mundane lives” – received an impressive 33,000 signatures. Unfortunately, a counter petition requesting that the socialite serve her full sentence was signed by over 91,000 people and featured on several major news channels in the US. Proof, if it were needed, that not everybody shares my innate capacity for forgiveness.
If you have ever commented on a blog post, web news article or Facebook group, you will probably have come into contact with trolls. They are the thoroughly irksome, pedantic and occasionally downright unsavoury individuals who post irrelevant, inflammatory and/or abusive remarks in message boards, often with the sole intent of disrupting on-topic conversation or undermining other forum users.
I have to confess, I don’t get Twitter. I’ve signed up for it. Attached it to this Blog. I’ve even got it on my iPhone. Yet I still find myself completely at a loss at what I should do with it. Maybe if I led the life of Stephen Fry (whose Tweets make me smile on a regular basis), then maybe I’d get it… but I don’t.
