Seems like a lot of people noticed that today’s top Trending Topic was …. #ILoveWalgreens. No. Really. Too bad it isn’t really organic. Its paid for… as in its a Promoted Trend. (here’s a nice explanation of all that) And I was certainly intrigued. Enough to start watching what was ACTUALLY being tweeted – just not paid to be there. So I scanned.. and then i saw this gem:
wow. and its a logically sound argument. cant beat that. So with that, I began to read more closely…
I’ll take you at your word. Way too much science involved to verify.
Obviously fake… but does it matter?
funny, i used to do the same thing with cologne and Kaufmanns
if true, that sucks.
Others however… were not even decipherable.
Not a lot of people were fooled into thinking scores of other twitter users were actually professing their die-hard affection for their pharmacy.
**you might be thinking to yourself… He totally cherry picked these bad apples out a big beautiful bunch. And well… that’s only partially true. I do admit to picking what i found to be some of the funnier ones. But its not like I had to spend hours combing through 1000s of other positive tweets to pick off these examples. See for yourself.
in the end, i’m left to wonder. is it really worth all that money to have more people poke fun at you? especially when – well, let’s just say this… a lot of people still talk about VD. Just because people are talking about some thing, doesn’t mean its a good thing.
3 Responses to “are promoted @twitter trending topics like #ILoveWalGreens worth it?”
just a guy who likes to build things for the web, tablet, and mobile devices. 
Greg
Thanks for the feedback. Twitter offers 1 sponsored trend a day. So if all their inventory is gone for the year, that means at most there are 365 unique advertisers. Sponsored trends and tweets are next manifestation and evolution of social media as a marketing platform.
I am a little disapointed that you aren’t sharing the full story however. A simple search of the hashtag #ILoveWalgreens would show a nearly 12 to 1 ratio of positive to negative/funny/off topic tweets. For example https://twitter.com/#!/srsbreakfast/status/157538621962993664
The feedback we’ve received from those on twitter and bloggers covering the story have been overwhelmingly positive. While, that’s nice, positive mentions was only a small portion of the KPIs being used to evaluate this program.
I certainly welcome your feedback on how we could improve.
Adam
Walgreens
Director, Social Media
cool. i didn’t think anyone read this crap. GA sures tells me that. but its also cool that you took time to reply. thanks.
i like words. a lot. respect the heck out of them. and “sponsored trends” are two words that should never be side-by-side. ever. can’t happen. know why? because by the very definition of sponsor… it means paid. you paid. you don’t pay to create a trend. not in art. not in fashion. not in anything. certainly not in the twitterverse (if anyone has a better word than that… give it to me please). A trend arises. it does not plop down. people are smart and they see through that. I found that interesting. thought it might make a nice post.
100% intentional. I’m a coder. not a marketing professional. and you know this… man. And you know i know funny. As I wrote, I began seeing funny tweets and thought… hmm, might make a nice post.
can’t refute your numbers. dont want to. but i did noticed the funny ones. i recognize that dashboards and metrics are evolving rapidly. just hope the sarcasm detector is up to snuff.
ok now this… nah. nope. sure, lil jon’s tweet was organic. but the suggestion most certainly arose from the #hashtag and the chatter. and by god, your response was pitch-perfect. but i’m not going to believe that this particular engagement and the resulting eyeballs was supposed to be intentional. a stated early goal. but if it was, its cherry picking. and while HUGELY valuable… not germane to what i was writing about. the funny ones. mostly.
i have no doubt that it was. you have always been one of the most positive people i’ve ever known. and i dig it. and still, as before – i code. and laugh. so i wrote about funny ones.
but yes, i did begin to think about it in terms of the marketing, and brand value. and risk. but thats me. PNC taught me well i think. i try to look at what im doing through the lense of what COULD go wrong and how can i prevent it. thats it.
and this can apply to anything really. driving. coding. marketing. but mostly…
i thought it was funny. reading some of the tweets.
so i wrote a post about it.
Greg – couldn’t agree more. Google is becoming useless as a search engine for the same reason.