Gone are the days when it will take ages for news to spread faster than wildfire, as the Free State provincial government learnt much to its dismay this week.
A Sowetan report that it had forked out R140 million for a Web site went viral within mere minutes, and the next thing you know, every man and his dog were bemoaning the cost, and asking whether this was yet another case of jobs for pals.
While it's fair comment to say that everybody jumped on the rehash (tag) bandwagon and few stopped to ponder whether the report was accurate, the province was caught napping by the deluge of comment.
It didn't help that key spokespeople were simply unavailable, probably in meetings trying to work out how to react, instead of just reacting.
Slow coach
A bit of probing uncovered that it wasn't R140 million, but rather R47 million, and not just for one site, but 38 of them, and a range of other services.
Social media is a beast that every single juristic person and celebrity should already have tamed.
It took many hours, several phone calls, and a multitude of e-mails and SMSes to ascertain that the original news story everyone was retweeting, the same one that caused the Democratic Alliance to fire off a shot, was wrong.
The true picture may never emerge, because there are three sides to every story, but the one that circulated madly for several hours did not include all the details. The story that was rehashed contained several main points:
- A Web site - the URL of which was not disclosed - cost R140 million to redesign.
- The contract was for three years.
- The province denied the cost, saying it was R40 million.
- The deal was signed with businessman Tumi Ntsele, who apparently holds tenders with several other provincial departments.
According to the Free State, when ITWeb finally received a response to questions:
- Some 38 sites were redesigned.
- The cost was R47 million over two years.
- The contract was with a joint venture consortium.
- Several other aspects were involved, such as social media.
Not knowing enough about Web sites, and the design thereof, I cannot say how fair this price is, although it works out to just more than a bar per site, which is then about R34 000 a site for every month, over the next three years. Frankly, a bit heavy for my pocket.
But then, I have no idea how much work would go into all of what the province wants, which, according to what it told me, seems like a lot. However, none of the commentators in the court of public opinion knew exactly what was being done either.
Too late
By the time more clarity was out, the damage had been done.
Social media is a beast that every single juristic person and celebrity should already have tamed. It's not something that can be ignored, as the danger of a damaged reputation is simply too great.
It's rapidly becoming more than just a tool for breaking news, or complaining to companies about their awful service - which reminds me, I owe someone a nasty tweet. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are redefining the way we interact with companies and each other.
They are also a way of getting recommendations, so people looking for decent plumbers will ask their network to refer them to someone good.
Yeah, ok, I'm preaching to the converted. Sadly, not everyone is aware of the pure power that social media has put into people's hands. And that's when things go pear-shaped.
The irony is that the province had also tasked the same consortium that handled the reengineering of its site with its social media interactions. Well, if the province has such a strategy, the Twitter account didn't exactly pop up first on a search. Instead, the R140 million cost did.
Woops.
The damage that has been caused to the Free State province can not easily be undone, if at all. Years from now, some bright spark will probably write a thesis on it in a bid to get a post-graduate degree in some fancy new-fangled qualification that dissects why a social media strategy needs to be built into business plans and not added on as some sort of lazy afterthought.
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