We regretfully admit that something has happened off of the Gulf Coast. More to come.
With that laconic tweet, on May 19th BPGlobalPR emerged on twitter. Today, ten days later, the account has 83,000 followers and has posted about 130 tweets. The humor in these tweets ranges from bitterly ironic to sophomoric, but the picture painted is one of a clueless multinational corporation trying to use social media to control public opinion. Naturally there’s also a BPGlobalPR Facebook page.
The REAL British Petroleum has a much broader PRchitecture in play than the one created by the satirists presently hacking the BP brand. BP has a twitter account, and you can find them on Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr. (How are those pictures of oil soaked pelicans working out for you, Tony?) The BP twitter account was created on April 16, 2009. In the last year they have attracted about 8,000 followers–less than 10% of the satiric site’s following, and most of them since the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. Less than 50 of the 320 tweets from the REAL BP were posted in the year before the oil spill. Most of these earlier tweets linked to the deadly prose of corporate press releases attempting to build the brand value of the franchised ampm convenience stores. British Petroleum’s first tweet, humorously enough, was this befuddled posting:
BP’s ampm offers free cheeseburger samples on tax day Release Date: April 13, 2009 16:13:51 CST
The tweet, citing a 4/13 press release, came the day after the 4/15 tax day promotion. They’ve gotten a lot more sophisticated since then. Here’s a more recent effort:
More effective and certainly more poignant, I think, is this BPGlobalPR tweet calling for broad public support posted earlier this week at the peak of public concern about the oil spill:
Please text 20222 to donate hot dogs to the BP Corporate Memorial Day Picnic. #bpcares #3dayweekend
Opinions on how BP can use social networking more effectively? You can express them here:
BP p.l.c.
International Headquarters
1 St James’s Square
London, SW1Y 4PD
UK
Phone: +44 (0)20 7496 4000
Fax: +44 (0)20 7496 4630
AND, you can get one of their snazzy BP Cares t-shirts here:
http://www.streetgiant.bigcartel.com/
* * *
Related linkage…
Gulf Restoration Network
BPGlobalPR Billboards (Catastrophe is a strong word. let’s all agree to call it a whoopsie-daisy.
BP President: We are Responsible
