Bad Publicity Is Not Just Publicity ...

“old as hell and mean as hell!”

“This teacher was by far the worst teacher I ever had.”

“DO NOT TAKE HIM!!!!”

The atrocious comments you just had the pleasure of reading were in fact ratings for three randomly selected teachers on the (in)famous website, RateMyProfessor.com. The issue with these comments isn’t the comment itself, but the fact that I can almost guarantee that any self-respecting student would never – EVER – take any of these professors after reading the rest of the comments.

At least I sure wouldn’t.

Now it’s not to say that these sources are even remotely legitimate or credible; they’re just peers that may have failed the class and hold a bitter grudge against a human being just doing their job.

Let’s look at the scope of this: the more people that rely on these ratings, less people enroll in the class, less classes of the subject are needed, more funding gets cut for that department, and now this individual can be out of a job.

Perhaps that’s a bit much. Maybe it’s not that serious, maybe it is. But the saying “bad publicity is still publicity” isn’t all its perked up to be.

In the real world, this is just a small-scale version of what would happen if, say a popular gossip site, created a potentially viral report based entirely on speculation of an important CEO (cough, cough – Steve Job’s “death”). The story could be completely falsified, but once word gets out, you better believe the company’s investors are going to start calling.

So what exactly does this have to do with the Monday Night Media Mix? We’re creating our own publicity.

In marketing, it's not about us learning the technical terms, it's about bringing our ideas to life. So how better to learn about social media than to become part of it?

Aside from the obvious perks of being able to promote our own class through our awesome blogs to allow for healthy and open discussion, we’re also able to channel our creativity, and what’s marketing without creativity?

Without creativity, we wouldn’t have the breathtaking and powerful movement that is Postsecret, the blog I intend to follow throughout the course of this class. I have been a religious fan (since high school!) of Frank Warren’s project, in which anonymous people submit their dark, lighthearted, agonizing, and humorous secrets every week.

Like the mission of this blog is to allow for open communication, Postsecret not only allows the world to share what they cannot say out loud, but it also resonates with each reader as it often says what we may be too afraid to share. For me, it’s more than just a blog, it’s therapy.

http://keansocialmedia.blogspot.com