March 08, 2010

Spin Citi

Last year, our generous representatives in Washington took 45 billion of our dollars and gave them to Citigroup so they could stay afloat.

Now Citigroup has a new online strategy for restoring themselves to that special place in our hearts for companies that really care about us.

A component of their strategy is a blog by their ceo -- some guy named Vikram Pandit (rhymes with bandit.) Pandit has admitted to having availed himself of company jets (that you and I paid for) for personal use, and last year got $125,000 for 6 weeks work. (Which isn't quite social media consultant money, but it ain't bad.)

Now, I'm not saying that Pandit's blog is the kind of worthless self-serving baloney you'd expect from a ceo of one of these global monstrosities, but then again, I'm not saying it's not. If you have trouble sleeping, it ought to do the trick.

The pathetic part is that after about a month, this guy's blog has 33 comments on it. Citi has about a zillion customers and another jillion shareholders and this guy's blog has 33 comments.

I wonder how much of our money their social media consultant made on this whack-a-thon? (Golly, do you think they have a Facebook page? That would be awesome!)

Another clueless corporation falls for the myth of interactivity.

And this time we pay.

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