Social Media Run Amok - By John Hendrie

Social Media empowers, and we should have seen it coming – the downside.  From Facebook, to Twitter, to instant messaging, to means not even on the market yet – we are connected and quickly.  The communication connections help us build relationships, inform, encourage and promote.  These are usually good things.  We have seen retailers and hospitality businesses benefit; we have seen nations tumble.  We also have watched the high be toppled, like former Representative, Anthony Weiner.  We have seen the meek further humbled and destroyed through cyber bullying.  What a powerful tool in the right hands with the right purpose, yet it has a duality.

The Wall Street Journal ran an article on 11/21/11, called 'Flash Robs’ Vex Retailers', and the ramifications are startling.  Most of us are familiar with Raves and Flash Mobs, where, typically,  the younger generations gather on the spur of the moment, having been alerted to the location and time by their network of friends.  The event is the gathering.  However, there is now a deviation to this crowd pleaser.  “Retailers this holiday season are preparing to protect themselves against a new group of unwanted visitors: swarms of teenagers and young adults who plot via Twitter, phone texts and Facebook to descend on stores and steal merchandise.”  This is the Flash Mob, a criminal aspect of the Social Media phenomenon.

These are not sublime and sunny days for many Americans, particularly with the Holidays approaching.  We have already seen with the protests in our major cities, the Wall Street Occupiers, that there is immediacy with message and a distain for the well to do and for what they stand .  Even as the weather turns, the demonstrations will continue to churn, for that is the mood.  Take it to the next level, and we have possibility of real calamity for our business communities.  And, this will be so easily facilitated through the Social Network.

To date the Flash Robs have been directed to the more vulnerable convenience stores and some retail establishments.  As the Journal disclosed, “The National Retail Federation says that flash-mob attacks were reported by 10% of the 106 retailers it surveyed in July, a group that included department stores and big-box chains, as well as grocery and drug-store operators.”  This is happening across America, not isolated pockets.

The article suggested that these incidents were still considered fun and entertaining for the participants, and it is very easy to be swayed with group activity and movement, to be the event.  However, those who have a pulse on the society mood can certainly feel a darker edge potential, where the joy becomes destructive behavior.   For that we need to be vigilant and prepared. 

 

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