A “boycott BP” movement driven by social media is gathering steam as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico 2010 continues unabated. Humorists are also using social media to affect BP’s reputation with bogus a BP Twitter account. Also, BP oil leak parody t-shirts are selling like crazy. Analysts are saying the oil company is seeing little effect on its profits besides the BP public relations nightmare.
Article Resource: BP Facebook boycott and BP Twitter – PR setback won’t hurt profits By Personal Money Store
BP boycott spreading to social media
BP boycott organizers say buying gas from other brands would hit the oil business really bad, short of the expense incurred dealing with the disaster. A lot more than 11,000 signatures were collected on Wednesday by Public Citizen after launching a BP Boycott Pledge on its site. Consumers are told to take their cash advance other places to get gas by a Facebook boycott group called Boycott BP with more than 75,000 members. But convenience may trump the act of signing a pledge online. Evidently the Facebook boycott isn't working either. The Washington Post surveyed customers at BP gas stations across the Washington region. Many drivers said it was pointless to complicate the convenience of filling a gas tank with political or moral questions.
BP Twitter account is rogue
The BP Facebook boycott may not be as effective as just hurting BPs reputation as the bogus BP Twitter account @BPGlobalPR. Wednesday the Los Angeles Times reports that the fake BP Twitter page had 42,000 followers. BP’s real Twitter account, @BP_America, only has 5,700. The fake BP Twitter account has raised a lot more than $3,000 for the nonprofit Gulf Restoration Network through the sale of $25 BP T-shirts colored black and green to represent money and oil. Some fan favorites from the Twitter page contain:
Catastrophe is a strong word, let’s all agree to call it a whoopsie daisy. The good news – Mermaids are real. The bad news: They are now extinct. I’m sorry, are people mad at us for drilling in the ocean?!? Maybe God shouldn’t have put oil there in the first place. DUH.
The real hit is the BP gas station owners
The BP boycott and BP T-shirts may affect small company BP gas station owners more than the global petroleum behemoth. CNNMoney.com reports that BP does not own the 11,500 gas stations that carry its logo in the United States. BP gas stations are owned by independent people. Those BP gas station owners pumped an average of more than 42-million gallons of gas per day last year. An oil business executive told CNN that BP, being one of the largest oil trading companies in the global market, can actually sell petroleum products wherever it needs to. Americans not purchasing BP gas will mean someone else will. CNN was told by BP that there has been no effect from the boycott efforts.
Read a lot more on this topic here
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/25/AR2010052501765.html
Los Angeles Times reports
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/05/bpglobalpr.html
CNNMoney.com reports
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/26/news/companies/boycott_BP/?npt=NP1
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