Hello! I’m John Weeks, developing innovative fundraising and communication strategies in Southeast Asia.

I particularly relish the challenge of growing nonprofit infrastructure. I’ve founded Our Books, Our Books Illustration and Design, House32 Web Design, and assisted in getting Open Development Cambodia and the ICT4 Cambodia Development Network off the ground.

I serve on the boards of Open Development Cambodia, Our Books, Nou Hach Literary Journal, and arts ‘think tank’ Sang Salapak.

I frequently teach at varied tech events, and enjoy sharing my interests via blogging, cartooning and varied writing. My opinions on art, culture, and technology are cited in publications ranging from Time and USA Today to Punk Planet.

Please feel free to get in touch.

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Posts Tagged ‘chevron’

December 16, 2012

When Social Marketing Goes Wrong: Chevron’s Deepwater Gulf ‘Sponsored Tweet’

I’m not a big fan of big oil.
So I was amused when a totally unsolicited tweet singing the praises of Chevron’s work in the Gulf of Mexico appeared in my TwitterStream.

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So far as I know Chevron had no direct connection with the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.

However, an oil company touting its work in the Gulf? That wound is still a little too raw. Others agreed.

 

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Chevron_01
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Twitter is a free service that’s scrambling to monetize itself;  ‘you get what you pay for’.  But for both Chevron, and especially Twitter, this looks like a pretty clueless misstep. Chevron sponsored a provocative tweet, and Twitter’s delivery really didn’t seem to have any consideration for audience targeting.

Curiously, while I was re-tweeted several times:
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…the current twitter link defaults to Chevron’s tweet, not mine.

And my original response tweet is not appearing in my web-based Twitter feed. http://twitter.com/john_weeks
(I can spot it on TweetDeck, which is a third-party app.) This has happened to everyone who hit ‘reply’, not just me.
(Search for @Chevron and try it yourself.)

 

Great way to quash discussion and potential backlash, Twitter!  Sequester hundreds of tweets, make them almost impossible to access as ordinary tweets and redirect their URL to a sponsored tweet. Looks like you want to head off a similar backlash as happened with McDonald’s.

Maybe it’s time to look into Weibo.  😉



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