Last week a new twitter trend emerged which got a lot of attention. The “#Unfollowdiddy” tag word on Twitter urged Twitter users to stop following Sean John Combs aka P. Diddy. Much like actor Ashton Kutcher, P. Diddy had been trying to raise a large following on Twitter, and on May 27th reached the 1,000,000 followers mark at which time he sent out the following Tweet and accompanying link to a YouTube video
Tweet: “WE DID IT!!!! A MILI A MILI A MILI!!! 1 MILLION FOLLOWERS!!! THANK YOU!!! YOU ARE ALL LOCKED IN!!!! Click here!!! VIDEO LINK:”
While his message and response video when reaching 1mm followers is amusing (It’s hard to believe his plane flies at 1 million feet, as I don’t think he owns a space shuttle, and that his pilot acts as his secretary taking calls about twitter), I’ll leave that be. However, unlike what most Twitter users seemed to think, the Unfollow Diddy trend actually started well before he reached the 1 million mark.
Once P. Diddy reached 1,000,000, many bloggers, especially those who blog about PR started talking about the #unfollowditty trend. They pointed to it as a perfect case example of what can happen when you don’t take care of your brand and treat your customers well online (Diddy didn’t follow his followers back on Twitter for instance).
So how did Diddy handle the UnfollowDiddy campiagn, was he apologetic? No, In fact the bellow are one of the messages P. Diddy sent out during the fight for followers to his “Haters”:
Tweet: “Heres a message for the HATERS..You must see this…Click here:“
So what happened? A PR Fiasco? No I’m beginning to think there’s no such thing as a PR fiasco on social networks/Web2.0, as long as you stay engaged.
P. Diddy talks a lot about “Locking In” (i.e. concentrating or focusing on what you want). What he did on Twitter temporarily, in the heat of this “Battle” was a different type of locing in though. He locked his twitter account so that non-followers would not be able to see his messages. Ingenious really, and I think this may have helped him keep followers. Even those involved in the UnfollowDiddy trend wanted to see his reaction to the trend afterall.
However, the real point is that Diddy stayed Diddy. He didn’t try to apologize or plead in increasing degrees like Absolut Vodka did back during the In an Absolut World Mexico Blogging Fiasco. No he remained honest/true to his brand, everyone be damned. Guess what, it always works. Today @iamdiddy is unlocked and he has over 1,012,184 followers and growing.
What did people say about him during the #unfollowdiddy campaign? Well, much like the Absolut blogging Fiasco most of the comments are just due to the Web2.0 flash mob mentality. I quickly text analyzed the most recent 4,000 or so #unfollowdiddy tweets, and as you can see by the word cloud and frequency counts below, the most common reason for unfollowing Diddy was because others were doing so (i.e. because it was “trending” and most importantly because it was something “fun” to do “LMAO” or Laughing My Ass Off). i.e. let’s see what we can do to Diddy online, or lets see what we can do to Absolut online…
In case you are interested in some of the more odd words above here are some example/quotes of tweets:
RT = A request to “RT” or please “Re Tweet” rebroadcast the same message
Barca/League = Barcelona Champions league, a spammer (posts by ” Sunshine Megatron ” or @smegatron owner of T-Shirt Hell.com)
rejectprop8 = a California Gay Marriage Proponent and a tag for those wishing to reject proposition 8 (the CA ban on gay marriage)
Black = “4 making a grown ass black man hold a umbrella 4 him when not raining”… [among others]
Hair or Head = complaints about his hair, Cassie’s half head of hair hair, or comments by hair dressers
Dance = “Cause Rappers don’t dance”…
Books = “for advertising Ciroc in the Hoods we need Books not Boose” [but also related to user names]
Sex = “#3wordsaftersex”, another tag of another Twitter trend asking people to tweet 3 words after sex
Biggie = “cause If BIGGIE was alive he would…”, “Nothing he [Diddy] did mattered after Biggie”, He [Diddy] shot Biggie” etc.
Marketers can learn a bit from P. Diddy. On SNS, don’t worry so much about what people say about you, just be honest and keep doing what you do! it will all sort itself out. “Haters” are few, and the mob mentality doesn’t last too long.
More than that, I would argue that this ‘battle’ couldn’t have been planned any better. Hitting 1,000,000 followers isn’t very newsworthy, but being engaged in a battle with your fans ofver followers, that’s newsworthy/something to blog about. Can it be any PR on social networks is good PR?
Tom
PS, Feel free to follow me on Twitter @tomhcanderson 
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7 responses so far ↓
1 Hazel Nieves // May 30, 2009 at 10:16 am
Tom,
What a great post! I really appreciated how you provided so much detail and facts in this article. I like the way you think Tom. I also loved your comment about his airplane flying at a million feet… Hilarious!
I must say however, I do not entirely agree with this statement you made…
“Marketers can learn a bit from P. Diddy. On SNS, don’t worry so much about what people say about you, just be honest and keep doing what you do! it will all sort itself out. “Haters” are few, and the mob mentality doesn’t last too long”.
There is truth in the fact people will follow trends and just act out on things because many are prone to ‘herd mentality’. But that does not mean all or even the majority (and there were thousands) of the comments expressed on Twitter were not what people really felt.
To me this is key lesson this incident offers if you are a marketer or in business. Why? Well because it’s a fact people who often feel negativity about your brand, product or services don’t bother to tell you about it, instead they tell their ‘network’. It’s not that they are afraid to tell you, it’s they know it’s usually a waste of time because nothing will be done about it. When most of us think about complaining or giving our feedback about some customer (or fan) experience we had we have visions of the dreadful #800 calls or dealing with an employee who really doesn’t give a heck about you or the company they work for.
To disregard what people say and keep doing what you have been doing is what I call ‘old model’ thinking. What people say and think about you and your business has become more important than ever in today’s economy. It’s like Gary Vaynerchuk says, “Social Equity is more important today than Financial Equity’.
What Twitter and social media has done is provided the tools to empower the voice of ‘people’. They finally have a medium to voice what they really think, speak their mind and easily find likeminded people around the world in seconds who feel the same way. And as this catching on, it’s only going to become more powerful!
I am not saying business needs to be afraid of today’s empowered consumer. What I am saying is there needs to be a healthy respect for what people feel and think regarding your brand, services, and products. Gone are the days when we can proceed with business as usual.
As for P Diddy, he may have as many or more followers on Twitter after this incident; however, his brand was diminished because the people said so. I suspect this will begin to affect him even more if the issues that caused people to take action against him in the first place continue. Arrogance is out in today’s marketplace.
Thanks again Tom.
Hazel Nieves
but don’t
2 Freddy // May 30, 2009 at 11:32 am
“Barca/League = Barcelona Champions league, a spammer (posts by ” Sunshine Megatron ” or @smegatron owner of T-Shirt Hell.com)”
This makes no sense. Barca (soccer) is somehow related to Sunshine Megatron and t-shirts? Huh?
3 Tom H C Anderson // May 31, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Freddy, sorry I was unclear. Yes, for some reason he, SunShine, used “Barca Champions Leaugue” in his tweets several times. Perhaps he is a fan, perhaps he has some related product or thinks it will help drive traffic to his site. I’m guessing he probably puts whatever the current twitter trend is in his tweets so people will click on his links. Perhaps there was also a popular barca tag/trend at the time?
4 Thom // Jun 1, 2009 at 1:59 pm
“Perhaps there was also a popular barca tag/trend at the time?”
yes, Tom, only that Barca (Barcelona, ESP Futbol team) just defeated Manchester United for the championship last week
re: the rest of the post - good analysis!
5 #unfollowdiddy « Kitten’s Thoughts // Jun 17, 2009 at 12:20 pm
[...] it reminded me of this article that I read this morning, analysising the #unfollowdiddy trend and concluding: “…the [...]
6 Tom H C Anderson // Jun 18, 2009 at 9:22 am
Kitty pulled some interesting numbers in his post above.
7 #unfollowdiddy – Accidentally in Code // Nov 22, 2009 at 9:20 pm
[...] it reminded me of this article that I read this morning, analysising the #unfollowdiddy trend and concluding: “…the [...]
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