Ooono, Jad, you posted your blog about Project X Haren a bit faster. I was working on the blog already, so decided to upload it as well (since its more about WOM).
One of the topics the week was Word-of-Mouth (WOM), and how many companies are using this communication strategy as one of their newest marketing tools (Trusov, Bucklin & Pauwels, 2009). They as well describe how founders of social networking sites began to invite people online and how more and more people became members of one group because of Word-of-Mouth: “Invitations have been the foremost driving force for sites to acquire new members”. (Trusov, Bucklin & Pauwels, 2009:90). Now, with the use of creating your own ‘event’ on Facebook, things could get a little out of hand…
To discuss this whole other different kind of Word-Of-Mouth, I would like to use an example of what happened in the Netherlands this week. This WOM strategy is different from company strategies, since now members/users of Social Networking Sites are using Social Media to promote something else – a hype created by them, namely the Biggest Project X Facebook Party ever.
I guess we have all seen the wild Project X movie (2012). This party was initially just a party organized by some friends. However, the party escalated into a huge chaos since thousands of people went to celebrate. This movie was a hit in many countries, and now in real-life people are trying to create their own Project X parties (even this year in Houston a teenager died after such a party!).
Source: http://www.sevendays.nl/artikel/188312
In the Netherlands this week, a 15-year-old girl created her own ‘event’ on Facebook for her birthday party for friends and family. Unfortunately by accident, she allowed other people to attend her party, since her party was ‘public’, not ‘private’. Friends of friends were inviting their own friend to come to her party. Of course, she removed her event the day after. However, many people were already aware of her birthday, and people were creating their own events. One of these events became extreme popular. The event, called Project X Haren, contained her real name and address. Within ten days, the amount of invitations exploded, and on the actual ‘party’ day 250.000 invitations were sent out, and 33.000 people supposed to ‘attend’. To avoid drama in the small town Haren, her parents, the police, and the National media were informing people to stay home. Unfortunately, the party was massive. The hype around Project X Haren was huge; people created their own t-shirts, there were busses, promotions for after parties and even a live stream to follow the party online. The party started in the afternoon and ended around midnight. Thousands of people came to destroy Haren. Even the Riot Control and 500 other policemen were not able to control the situation.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2jdg5Rr09U
As Jad already mentioned in his blog post below, that traditional media (TV, radio, newspapers) should be blamed as well (and not only Social media). I guess that the Internet was only the starting point of this hype and afterwards the traditional media made this hype even worse.
So to conclude, one small mistake whilst creating an ordinary ‘event’ for you own birthday went completely out of control. The media turned out to be an extremely powerful tool considering this event and people were making use of this. I think in this case it was wrong of the people to misuse Social Networking Sites by spreading the hype – by making the party extremely interesting by people themselves (WOM).
Isabel Beijers, 335155
References:
Information Project X Haren: www.nu.nl
Trusov, M., Bucklin, R. E., Pauwels, K. 2009. Effects of word-of-mouth versus traditional marketing: Findings from an Internet social networking site,” Journal of Marketing (73) 90-102.
