The year in social media: the good, the bad, and the ugly

2010 was the year of Social Media. It seems like everything revolved around social media and so many things – from fantastic to horrific – arose as a result. The power of social media cannot be denied, and below is evidence as proved by the events of the year:

The Good

Tutus for Tanner. On an August morning in New York City, 150 women and men bloggers donning tutus set out on a philanthropic run to raise awareness and funds for Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). Suffering from the illness is the nephew of a prolific blogger, Catherine Connors (Her Bad Mother).

Old Spice. Through a series of hilarious viral videos, a stale brand was made new again and regained its status as a household name in 2010. By creating a character that people liked, and combining that with the exact elements needed in order to ensure this campaign would go viral, Old Spice succeeded in setting the example of how using social media creatively can breath life into any brand.

Facebook & Twitter. The two largest social media platforms were all the rage in 2010. Whether you love to hate them or hate to love them, one thing is certain – if you’re not using one or the other, you are out of the social media loop. The two have little in common, save for the fact that they are both online connectors, and the idea that both are powerful brand builders took off this year. What’s in store for 2011?

The Bad

Amazon Controversy. When Amazon posted for sale a self-published book entitled, The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure, the world, including the blogosphere, went WILD. Pressure to remove the book finally resulted in just that, and many admitted that they would boycott Amazon for carrying it at all. Others hope the event can result in some potential removal of scum from the earth.

Blog for a Chance to Win Phenomenon. This topic has been covered several times lately. With so many incredible opportunities for bloggers and brands to connect, why would any blogger blog for a chance to win?

Plagiarism in the Blogosphere. Who hasn’t considered how easy it would be to “borrow” someone else’s words in order to meet a deadline – in high school or college perhaps – but in the blogosphere? “Blogger” Katie Pearson broke the hearts of dozens of bloggers by stealing their content and posting it, verbatim, on her blog as her own. An invasion of privacy? The theft of intellectual property? Whatever you want to call it, this event was a major social media low in 2010.

The Ugly

Disney Social Media Moms Fiasco. After much anticipation, the registration date and time for the Disney Social Media Moms Conference in Orlando opened on December 2, 2010. Hundreds, if not thousands of bloggers sat at their computers, fingers ready to input the info requested of them. Virtual high-fiving and self-congratulatory tweets began to fly as a few lucky people successfully registered, while others labored away at the refresh button, hoping they would be able to access the registration page. Disney had told bloggers registration would be on a first-come-first-served basis. But as acceptance and rejection notices filled inboxes 24 hours later, it was evident that selection had little to do with timing. Moms are mad, and to many who feel shunned, Disney is not looking as magical as it once did.

KFC Partners with… Breast Cancer? In a moment of sheer absurdity, KFC’s “Buckets for the Cure” campaign attempted to raise money for breast cancer awareness (good) by selling buckets of cancer-inducing fried chicken (bad). While its heart was in the right place, the mind-boggling campaign probably produced more head scratching than dollars. One thing this campaign did succeed at was gaining much mind-share as it stretched over the entire expanse of the Internet.

Mold in Capri Sun. A family found a large, disgusting piece of who-knows-what in their child’s Capri Sun pouch and the mom posted images of the nasty looking “mold” on Facebook. The images sparked far-reaching controversy, and parents from far and wide weighed in on everything from what the thing actually was (Human tissue? Alien life? Eyeball?) to how Kraft Foods shoulda/woulda/coulda handled it. In the end, Kraft’s food testing lab determined it was nothing more than the mold also known as Paecilomyces variotii.

Jill Notkin blogs at The Daily Grind of a Work at Home Mom when she’s not tweeting@AlexCaseyBaby. She is also the Managing Director of MotherTalk division at Mom Central Consulting.

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