Daily Article of Interest and Breakdown

Two entries in one day?  What is the world coming to?  Heck, I might even toss in a new feature called article of the day.  I come across so many excellent articles during my reading every morning.  I peruse blogs, newspapers, tv sites, pr sites, and there is an awful lot of good content out there.  Take this entry for instance.  It's from "The Bad Pitch Blog" and has a lovely little blurb that really spoke to me this morning.  Here is the blurb.  For the rest of the entry, go here.

Pledge to Make a Mistake: Promising yourself you'll f-up in 2010 comes with two benefits. Accepting you'll make a mistake allows you to focus on the actual work instead of achieving perfection and dreaming up horrible consequences stemming from the mistake. But more importantly, you'll learn something. It's not whether or not you'll make a mistake, it's how you handle the mistake that will ultimately set you apart -- for better or for worse.

I love it!  Make mistakes, take chances, be bold.  You know, now that I mention it, I think I might really do the daily article thing.  What do you think?  Would it interest you?  I would try to keep it social-media and pr focused, but every now and then I might also toss in other stories of interest, like this one, from the BBC. 

Speaking of taking bold actions and making mistakes, here's a quick look at the headline, and I think you'll understand why I'm linking to it.

BeautifulPeople.com axes holiday weight gain members

The site is unabashed about its selection criteria

Dating and social network site BeautifulPeople.com has axed some 5,000 members following complaints that they had gained weight.

If you will allow me to digress for just one moment, I just have to say something about this, and it has nothing to do with the fact that I unabashedly admit I will never be accepted into Beautifulpeople.com's database.  I qualify as a "roaming fatty" so...there you go.  No, I wanted to comment on the newsworthiness of this article.


I found the story from a Tweet I saw.  It came from this guy, Duncan Hopwood in England.  Here is his exact Tweet (@Hopwood).

I know it's been a quiet holiday but can't believe the BBC fell for this. http://ow.ly/Sy5l #pr 5:19 AM Jan 4th from HootSuite

My intial reaction was something very similar, only in an opposite direction.  You see, when I saw this story, I thought it was a joke.  Seriously, I thought someone had pulled the wool over the eyes of the BBC and perpetrated a gigantic hoax.  Something in my gut still tells me it might be fake, but I press on.  In fact, before I posted this to my Facebook page, or noted it here, I went to several (six) different major news-sites to confirm that this was, indeed, a real story.  

It is, life goes on, as does Beautifulpeople.com, albeit five-thousand members lighter.  So now we have to ask how this became an international news story.  How does a website with a few thousand members manage to grab the attention of some of the most respected news organizations in the world and become a viral hit in social media circles?

First, ask yourself what your visceral reaction was to this story when you read it.  Mine was slightly shocked followed by laughter, followed by pitiful headshaking.  This is a story for precisely that reason.  This story evokes emotion.  But does it really fit the news criteria that I've laid out in previous entries?  Let's take a look.

Impact - This is a no brainer.  Since this is a website that I would venture most of us have never heard of, let alone belonged to, until we read this story, it has little, if any, impact on our lives.

Proximity - Well, the site is oriented towards those living in England, but it's online, so in a sense it's worldwide.  However, I would venture to guess that there are very few Coloradoans, or other Americans on the site.  So proximity is out as well.

Timeliness -  This is an interesting topic as it meets this criteria TWICE.  First, it's a story that just happened, and the backlash is currently taking place, so it meets this one on that level.  But on another level it also qualifies since this is the time of year when millions, if not billions of people resolve to lose weight in the coming year.  Weight loss stories and ads are all over the television, online and in print.  Really, the timing of this story couldn't have been better.

Relevance -  This goes back to the second level of timeliness.  It is somewhat relevant because so many of us want to lose weight.  This story shows a direct consequence of being overweight.  This is just another message tossed our way telling us how unattractive fat people are.  We will relate to being scorned, like those 5,000 former members, because most of us have felt the pain of being labeled a "fatty".  It hits the mark on this one.

Wow Factor -  This is where the story really hits a home run.  To many this story is outrageous.  The quote itself is outrageous in its straightforwardness.  The thought that an online site would voluntarily ax FIVE THOUSAND members?  Well that's a wow factor that can't be ignored.  This one is a bullseye.

So while this story completely whiffs on some very important criteria, such as proximity and impact, it hits pretty solidly with the three others.  Three out of five isn't bad, and in this case, given the sheer wow factor alone, it qualifies as a story worthy of coverage.

I can only imagine the faces of reporters, editors and producers when this story came across the wires.  There was probably some chuckling and drooling taking place at the juicyness this story represented.  I gaurantee that there will be interviews with some of the axed members, a protest by some "fat is beautiful" group and some kind of apology before weeks end.  And it will all be covered by world news organization, probably right after they report on some tragic bombing or shooting in a war-ravaged part of the world, but before they report on starving children in Africa.

This story is also a great examination of the power of social media.  This is a website that allows people to feel like they belong to an exclusive group.  Online, building groups is vitally important.  Members of the site actually get to approve or disapprove of potential members, making them feel like active participants in the site.  Members feel like caretakers and were active enough to tell five thousand other members to shove off.  Despite what you feel about the site itself or its actions, a lot can be learned from how this site operates in terms of building a brand, earning loyalty, enticing members to feel active and be interactive and growing a community, if even a very exclusive one.

Think about your social media efforts and ask yourself if you're doing enough to attract new members by building a community, and if you're doing enough to keep them by letting them feel as if they're an active part of your organization.  If not, you might want to emulate a thing or two that Beautifulpeople.com is doing.  Without, you know, the hubris and stupidity of alienting five thousand plus people in the process.