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"Is anyone awake?" The Universal Social Media Thread

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ReelJustice

ReelJustice

V.I.P. Member
Aug 6, 2008
4,459
4,452
Universal City
Thanksgiving Night, someone from Universal Orlando's social media team tweeted and posted on Facebook the following question "Hello, is anyone awake?" at 11 PM EST. They never followed up on responses to it, and it looks like it was posted by mistake by someone who had too much turkey...or Wild Turkey...

If this were the only instance of "WTF?!" from Uni Social Media, it would be forgivable, but they are repeat offenders. Their ineptitude is amplified by the aptitude of their competitors at the Disney Parks Blog. While @DisneyParks does make the occasional gaffe, they do a fairly good job 95% of the time. Uni Social Media gets it right about 5% of the time.

Beginning this past summer, Disney Parks posted a New Fantasyland update every Tuesday to get folks excited about the upcoming land. Daily, they are on twitter engaging fans and releasing news while @UniversalORL does things that make you go :doh:

Universal has more going on than Walt Disney World, yet you would never know it. They are content on keeping secrets, ignoring the obvious, and failing to build free hype. Today, Disney replaced sections of the Seven Dwarves Mine Train construction walls with Plexiglass, so guests can now peer into the construction. Disney California Adventure did something similar with a viewfinder to look at Cars Land. At Universal, they have annoying Team Members dressed as tourists to discourage construction photos, and they may have strong-armed local helicopter companies into not flying too close to construction projects.

I am going to go out on a limb and assume Universal monitors this forum as Disney monitors WDWmagic and the like. I implore you to improve your use of social media and to establish a blog where you can update your fans on upcoming projects. You have done some great things like the build up to Despicable Me and the announcement of Transformers. Build on those successes! You have the most exciting resort in Orlando. Embrace it! WAKE UP!

[HASHTAG]#NeverForget[/HASHTAG]
[video=youtube;G16_UzDu6iU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G16_UzDu6iU&list=UUuHvwD4UFq0CziHtiy0WeHw&index=1&feature=plcp[/video]
 
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Disney is guaranteed to have guests no matter what, from all over the world. People will come construction or not. They know there young ones will likely not feel the same way about Disney in the next couple of years. Universal on the other hand really needs these attractions to take a serious shot at Disney attendance, but they still need the attendance now as well.
 
Embrace it and hire people who know how to use Social Media effectively. It is the wave of the future (present even). Embrace it. Don't fight it. You'll be left out in the cold.
 
The funny part is, from what I can tell, they've "downgraded" to using HootSuite for their Facebook posting, where they used to use Context Optional (got bought by Adobe). Overall, HootSuite is far less advanced of a tool compared to what they were using.

If anything, they're going backwards.

Oh and they're using camera phones for pictures on their social media, which probably bothers me more than it should.
 
This topic being said, it may be interesting and related to note that Disney just canceled(to what extent no one seems to be sure) their What's Next event that was planned for this next coming week. Odd.
 
PWT said:
The funny part is, from what I can tell, they've "downgraded" to using HootSuite for their Facebook posting, where they used to use Context Optional (got bought by Adobe). Overall, HootSuite is far less advanced of a tool compared to what they were using.

If anything, they're going backwards.

Oh and they're using camera phones for pictures on their social media, which probably bothers me more than it should.
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I noticed their switch to HootSuite. One of the main problems with their switch to HootSuite is that the images that they upload to Facebook are far less quality than the pictures they used to upload using Context Optional.
 
Those tourists hired by Universal are annoying as hell. Yes, their social media sucks. And over in the Transformers thread I heard CMs were directing guests away not to take pictures.
 
WAIT, could this guy have been controlling it?

[video=youtube;Kgrt7XZ-BQw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgrt7XZ-BQw&sns=em[/video]
 
Not speaking on behalf of Universal, but i'm pretty sure in assuming that the "Is anyone still up" post was made in regards to the Black Friday shopping crowd, as a little "we're up at this time too!" funny post. That's why at 3:00am they posted the Butterbeer image with the "Shop shop, shop till you drop. And when you can’t stop…drink a Butterbeer." caption through FB.

So I wouldn't really call it a WTF moment.
 
The asinine thing is they're throwing money literally everywhere else. Think of all the hits Potter and Transformers behind the scenes updates would get on Youtube. It's stupid not to use the internet to your advantage these days.
 
jtsalien said:
The asinine thing is they're throwing money literally everywhere else. Think of all the hits Potter and Transformers behind the scenes updates would get on Youtube. It's stupid not to use the internet to your advantage these days.
Click to expand...

They're trying to keep Potter under tight locks.
 
King_K. said:
Not speaking on behalf of Universal, but i'm pretty sure in assuming that the "Is anyone still up" post was made in regards to the Black Friday shopping crowd, as a little "we're up at this time too!" funny post. That's why at 3:00am they posted the Butterbeer image with the "Shop shop, shop till you drop. And when you can’t stop…drink a Butterbeer." caption through FB.

So I wouldn't really call it a WTF moment.
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I'd very much disagree. It's just another in a long line of stupid, moronic, pointless "social media" posts from them. I've literally never seen a major theme park more inept at social media.

- - - Updated - - -

ThemeParks4Life said:
They're trying to keep Potter under tight locks.
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And they announced Transformers. They should be giving updates.
 
JungleSkip said:
I'd very much disagree. It's just another in a long line of stupid, moronic, pointless "social media" posts from them. I've literally never seen a major theme park more inept at social media.
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It might be a pointless post in terms of marketing, but it's definitely not a drunken mistake like you made it seem earlier.
 
Well, sometimes, you have to press a button harder to get it to retract. UO's social media team is trying, but they're not very effective. Disney's is. Universal should fix theirs, and that's about it. Lol.
 
King_K. said:
Not speaking on behalf of Universal, but i'm pretty sure in assuming that the "Is anyone still up" post was made in regards to the Black Friday shopping crowd, as a little "we're up at this time too!" funny post. That's why at 3:00am they posted the Butterbeer image with the "Shop shop, shop till you drop. And when you can’t stop…drink a Butterbeer." caption through FB.

So I wouldn't really call it a WTF moment.
Click to expand...

Someone's thinking outside the box, great job! :lol:

violarum said:
Well, sometimes, you have to press a button harder to get it to retract. UO's social media team is trying, but they're not very effective. Disney's is. Universal should fix theirs, and that's about it. Lol.
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Their is a brand new social media manager in the mix and the team is being changed up. Sometimes it takes a little while to get things firing on all cylinders :thumbs:
 
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