Power to the people?

Last week there was huge furore over the banning of the NeverSeconds blog by a local council in Scotland. It appeared that some councillors were unhappy about a local pupil taking a photo of her school meal each day and reviewing it.  Once the story broke, the Twittersphere (sorry a horrid word I know!) was ablaze with support for the blog with #NeverSeconds soon becoming a trending topic.

Of course by the end of day the council had backed down and the ban on the pupil taking photos at the school had been lifted.  The BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones even suggested (tongue in cheek) it was a PR masterstroke by the council to raise the profile of the local area!

What the whole saga does illustrate is that there are still a host of organisations out there that fail to grasp the power and influence of social media.  The advent of blogging and the likes of Twitter have empowered people more than ever before to speak out and share their opinions.  Many organisations are now playing with fire if they simply ignore social media and deem it just as a ‘PR annoyance’. As shown by the NeverSeconds story, campaigns can quickly take a life of their own, so organisations need to be prepared to respond in a timely manner otherwise they risk losing face.

Whether we like it or not the world is becoming more social.  Ultimately how organisations react to social media is as important as how they interact with it.