How Al Jazeera Is Using Promoted Tweets & Trends to Get Into U.S. Markets

From the article:

"Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo.

I can't believe someone at Kenneth Cole thought that tweet was appropriate... Wow.

I am actually part of the Meetup Everywhere team, and it's been really exciting to see Al Jazeera use the platform we launched a few weeks ago to organize their base. We're really hoping that Everywhere can become a go-to solution for distributed movements like this.

I attended (well, hosted/organized) the last AJE Meetup here at our office last night and it was a really good time. I recommend checking to see if there's anything going on in your local community... Not because I work on the product, just because I really enjoyed what came out of the event for me.

I don't see a problem with this at all. Sure, it's largely about advancing their company's goals, including profit.

But they're doing a magnificent job covering this crisis, so I don't see a problem with them doing some advertising that says, "See how good we are at journalism? Maybe you shouldn't shut us out of your country just because we come from the same area as terrorists."

The thing that I like about this marketing, is that they are not really marketing to people to get them to pay money. They are using a host of tools (here Promoted Tweets and Meetup Everywhere) to build a following that will demand Al Jazeera. Such tools not only allows them to build a movement a relatively cheaply using online tools (which is great), but also lets their users better connect with one another.

I wish more companies did something like this.

I'm frankly amazed that RWW is trying to present this 'neutrally' by asking whether people see an issue with AJE trying to break into the [bigoted] US market.

I get that they rely on user engagement and comments and so on, but really, encouraging controversy about a respected journalism outlet's attempts -which even they admit has shown its stripes with its Egypt coverage- to get carried in the US? A bit disappointing.

The linked controversy-generation article just rings so hollow: "Wow, this news network is BUYING ad space! Trying to BUY its way into eyeballs!" ... Meanwhile, what, Fox/MSNBC/CNN/etc are completely non-profit? And that's without even getting into comparisons of content quality.