November 20 2008
Twitter’s Power over Motrin
Twitter, a growing social networking site/utility that allows you to message in real time with all the other members of Twitter (the twittersphere), has jumped into the news lately due to the HUGE amount of fuss produced by the Motrin Moms.
If you haven’t heard about this, the story goes like this:
Motrin releases a humorous (at least to their marketing dept) video that shows how Motrin can help moms who carry their babies in slings. The video was not meant to be a negative commentary on a mother’s choice to ‘wear’ their baby, but that didn’t stop the large amount of mother’s (the motrin moms) from complaining … loudly … that Motrin was making fun or them and making the world think that baby slings/baby wearing was painful (at least to your back).
Twitter, in particular, ERUPTED in a sea of tweets with the ultimate result being that Motrin apologized and pulled the ad. WOW, now THAT is a lot of power!
If you want to take a look at the MotrinMoms profile on Twitter, here’s the link:
The question I raise is this: SHOULD a social network/media group, such as Twitter, have so much ultimate power? Understanding that I don’t think Motrin Moms are going to try to take over the world, but does this group, although very loud in their protesting, really represent mothers and motherhood? Because I can see a potential outcome in that companies because courting the online moms, rather than the non-online ones (there are still quite a few out there, I’m certain).
