Unintended consequences

The BBC is an odd, many would say infuriating, organisation. It has an audience that is skewed to the older end of the age spectrum but it desperately wants it to be younger. It spends a disproportionate amount of its programming and online budget on a small and declining number of young people. It is like the broadcasting King Canute, trying to turn back the tide of young people’s infatuation with PC and Mobile screens rather than the box (in the UK, slang for TV).

The BBC has a leftist, 60’s liberal view of the world, but a large slug of its audience make Attila the Hun look like a perfectly reasonable chap.

So when the BBC decided that ‘social networking’ and all things Web 2.0 was the way to ‘engage’ with the young it created a ‘have your say’ section. A place to give your views about everything from - how diverse is multicultural Britain - to - do you believe the official story of Diana's accident?

This started as simple notice-board that was moderated by the BBC’s own staff. Not surprisingly the items selected for publication reflected the BBC’s political/social bias.

Then some bright spark at the BBC read page two of the idiots guide to Web 2.0 and discovered that it was possible to let contributors rank other people’s views.

Surprise, surprise the political tenor took one giant leap to the right. My bet is the BBC’s love affair with social networking democracy will be short lived. Before they pull the plug go and have a look for yourself.

The moral of this story is that if you think social networking has some marketing edge for your organisation you might not get the type of engagement with your market that you expect or want. Dick Stroud