The British have always loved an underdog. Since more often than not this has been a description of our island nation itself, it is a sentiment that runs deep in many. So it was no surprise that the big old BBC is currently coming under heavy fire for picking on the runt of its radio litter, 6 Music.
However this underdog has managed to bark its way into most national papers and leave its mark all over social media sites, leaving the Beeb instead to scamper off with its tail between its legs. Thanks to the noise some of its listeners made, the station is now enjoying more listeners than ever before. The ‘Save BBC 6 Music’ Facebook group has 170,834 members to date. As the top dogs should have realised, anyone can take to the social media stand and fight their corner, in front or an ever increasing and increasingly mutinous audience. Although only half a million were listening, the whole population was reading, blogging and tweeting.
Throw in a few famous faces and there you have it, a recipe for a successful rebellion. With so many sets of eager ears to now preach its troubles to, it was inevitable that hundreds of budding insurgents would take up the cause and fight for the station’s survival. Thousands will be defending the station’s existence just by tuning in. As I sit here with 6 Music happily humming away in the background, I will freely admit I would never have turned over had it not been for the flurry of press coverage the campaign received.
Ironically, it is the BBC we should feel sorry for. Although it has been long forgotten in the wake of the protest, there was valid reason as to why it was number 6 they pointed the finger at. Purely and simply, 6 Music just did not have that many listeners in comparison to its radio relatives. It all seems fair enough to me actually. But hey, it just goes to show what an effective campaign can be waged when the public puts their minds, and their keyboards, to it.
Let the lesson be learned, never give the British public something to complain about. It is what we do best. Most are just waiting for near enough any excuse to mount the soapboxes, reach for the megaphones, and in this day and age, connect to the World Wide Web and blog. Even if 6 Music must face the final curtain, it will surely go out with a hell of a bang thanks to the generous sprinkling of gunpowder that social media added to the mix.
Sadly it seems that this lesson is taking a little too long to sink in for some. Nestlé has joined the ever growing list of companies that have grossly underestimated the influence of social media sites. After some of it employees snubbed the constructive feedback Nestlé were getting from their use of palm oil on their Facebook page, the moderators made some rather destructive comments, finally committing the cardinal social media sin by deleting said criticisms. Cue resulting carnage. Nestlé should have known better than to try and hush dissenting voices in such a rudimentary fashion.
A comment from one protester summed up the fiasco rather eloquently. “Hey PR moron. Thanks, you are doing a far better job than we could ever achieve in destroying your brand.”
Quite.
