The Dominos Of Social Media

April 17, 2009 00:02 by author

I’m going to ask for some indulgence here as I walk you through a series of quotes from this ReadWriteWeb article. The article is about a nasty video that was put on YouTube by two Domino’s employees and Domino’s efforts to fight against it via Social Media. As they point out here…

In terms of its social media presence, Domino's Pizza gets a lot of things right. It has a YouTube Channel, a Twitter account, and both a Facebook and MySpace profile.

Then the article details how the YouTube video features Domino’s employees…how shall we say…defiling a sandwich. Trust me you don’t want an explanation any more specific than that.

From there the article goes on to point out this video has been viewed more than half a million times and has severely hurt the Dominos brand. Then they say…

In response to this uproar, Domino's decided to release its own video on YouTube, which features Domino's president Patrick Doyle. Of course, Doyle's video, which refers to the story as a 'hoax,' will not be able to draw half a million viewers, but Domino's Pizza is doing the right thing by going to YouTube, where, after all, the whole affair began.

Finally they quote an article from today’s USA Today.

Bruce Horovitz, in USA Today, describes some of the lessons that other companies can learn from from this controversy. Among other things, he recommends that companies actively monitor Twitter and other social media channels, so that companies can response quickly when problems appear. Comcast is a good example for a company that is using Twitter to rebuilt its image.

OK, after all that what is my point?

To answer that I have to ask a question: How do we learn from each other in life? My understanding is that we learn by watching someone do something and then watching the result it produces. From that we can decide whether we want to (A) emulate those people or (B) do the exact opposite.

So lets breaks this down. Dominos had a crisis situation. They responded with Social Media outreaches. And then what happened?

The answer is that it seems to have been completely ineffective. In fact, the true irony is that Social Media did more damage than good in this case. ReadWriteWeb and USA Today wrote stories that drew people to the offending video which is exactly what Dominos doesn’t want happening.

And what drew ReadWriteWeb and USA Today to the story? Domino's use of Social Media.

Honestly, I don’t know if there is a lesson to be learned here. I do tend to think it’s a good idea for companies to be on Twitter because that’s where people would look for a response. But even so I have to admit it blew up in Domino’s face here.

That’s my point. Social Media is a new medium and none of us have quite figured out how to use it effectively yet. So in looking at it’s various uses and seeing what they produce we have to be honest in assessing the results. Because that’s the only way to determine what is and is not effective.

So Social Media Advocates who see what they want to see are counter productive and, in the long run, actually hurt the cause of Social Media.

Addendum: A little further down the RSS Feeds I found the New York Times also covered the story, albeit with a slightly different take. Also, Podcasting News provided my favorite laugh line of the story...

Unless you’re living under a rock, you’ve probably heard about Domino’s employees Kristy Hammonds and Michael Setze’s videotaped antics in the Domino’s Pizza kitchen - putting boogers on sandwiches, sticking cheese up their noses and wiping their behinds with the sponges that they use to clean up with.

I monitor over 500 rss/atom feeds and I hadn't heard about this. The video had only been viewed half a million times which isn't that much when you consider YouTube is available worldwide and there are surely people who watched it several times. In the end my point still stands: This didn't start getting mainstream coverage until Dominos jumped in and tried to use Social Media to respond.

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April 16. 2009 18:52

I think your missing the point. The video had already gone viral before Dominos signed up for Twitter. They were just playing catchup

Dorry

April 16. 2009 20:09

That's what some people are trying to spin it as. The same people who have a vested interest in making it look like Social Media is the be-all-end-all. But consider this. One, the video's been around since Monday but the Mainstream media didn't start covering it until a day after Domino's decided to respond. Two, the video had been watched by only about 1/2 a million people when these articles were written but now it's been seen by many, many million more (USA Today and the NY Times alone account for about 40 million unique visitors a month).

Tom

April 21. 2009 11:59

Great article, Tom. Stumbled it, twittered it, added it to del.icio.us, and will probably write a reaction post later.

I think there are two things going on here:

1. The Streisand Effect, which you alluded to
2. Channel volume - the viral impact of the original YouTube video could not be surmounted in any way, shape, or form by Domino's. There was no stopping it, no preventing it. All Domino's could do was make it worse, which they did (Streisand Effect).

MarketingNinja

April 22. 2009 08:29

Actually, on your point 2, I've been thinking on this since I wrote the post and I think I've come to this: I think the youtube video was a good idea and should have been posted as a response to the original video. I also think it's ok to post individual responses on Twitter.

But I think what they did was to go over board. They were so aggressive that it turned into something it shouldn't have been. I guess what it comes down to is Social Media is just like any other medium of communication and, imho, companies should treat tweets in the same way they treat calls to their customer service line. Which is to address the person't concern and move on.

Part of this too is that they weren't signed up for all these services before. I don't personally like Twitter but I think every company should have a presence at this point.

Tom

April 22. 2009 08:31

@MarketingNinja - P.S. For what it's worth I miss the more opinion based posts you used to do (as opposed to your other blog where I realize you have to be a tad more professional)

Tom

April 22. 2009 15:44

@Tom

I miss the opinion-based posts too. I have to be pretty careful about what I say though since some of it can come back to bite me in the ass at my day job.

MarketingNinja

May 5. 2009 03:43

very interesting post. thanks for informing.

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About Me

Hi, I’m Tom and I run the IT department for a non-profit agency which provides treatment to special-needs children. Though I will (like any blogger) comment on technology in general my main goal is to detail how I’m trying to use technology to help treat the children we serve and its my hope that blogging will allow me to connect with people who can help in that goal.

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