Following the episode of the World Cup, the negative buzz around the blue has intensified over the Internet with the viral power of Web 2.0 tools: social networks, blogs, Twitter ... The E-blue reputation is tarnished and we realize how the impact of these messages is sustainable on the web. There is a true memory effect in terms of image and visibility on the Internet. Here is a snapshot of what we found on the web.

Chronology of events

A negative buzz worthy of the best digital strategies

If the mainstream media are meat and drink to the fiasco of the Team of France at this World Cup, there is a real negative buzz on all channels of the Web, giving new echo to the controversy:

• On YouTube videos on the France team monopolize the top positions among the most popular videos. Today, the 23 most popular videos, 17 concerned the blues and a total of 1,381,000 views. The blues are not spared by the diversion and parody videos that among the buzzing, a diversion of advertising Nicolas Anelka for Quick, a humorous montage of images crossing players in action and pictures of the island issue the temptation of TF1, but also false skits, songs, ect.

• On Twitter: hashtags several turns negative buzz: # edf (for Team France), domenech #, # Anelka, # edfgate twitts ... The Blues have been linked to peak during the evening of June 17, during the Anelka deal last weekend. It is also interesting to see that twitts sports journalists and politicians on the subject have high visibility with these hashtags.

• On the blogs: A blogger was particularly noted yesterday, the rugby player Sebastien Chabal himself has published on its website an editorial unflattering to the attitude of French football.

• On Facebook: Not surprisingly, the blues are not spared. There are 3 pages federalizing the first is the name of the Team of France , it is not official but brings 70,000 fans and is very active. The second called Domenech resign ! umbrella is another page with more than 111,000 fans. You can also find a pot to celebrate the departure of French coach , who counts more than 260,000 people. Finally, the team has devised a les3points.com f as Facebook page of the France team.

The fact that discussions take place on several channels illustrates once again the power of phénomne virality.

The controversy outside social networks

Besides the buzz and discussions that took place on social media, two unique initiatives have distinguished themselves on the web: The first, humorous, is a viral game launched on June 18, offering users to romp image the French coach (already 1.7 million players at the time of this writing).

The second initiative is more serious: via an online petition , the journalist Jean-Jacques Bourdin RMC has asked players to give up all their gains from the World Cup. With 150,000 signatures, it would seem that this initiative has had a certain resonance.

The impact on the digital image of players

The negative image of blue on the web is likely to persist. Some players have already paid the cost, such as Franck Ribery: After being involved in a sex scandal during the month of April, now some keywords related to the query on Google Ribery have nothing to do with football ... it is the same for the coach.

In the case of Nicolas Anelka, he already had a Facebook page and Twitter account before the World Cup, respectively, with 111,000 fans and 38,000 followers. On Facebook, his explanations to the newspaper France Soir on June 19 and have been reissued repeatedly commented on by the Internet (2600 comments, positive and negative). However, his last message on his Twitter account dated 17 May 2010.

Finally, the graph according to AT Internet illustrates how the buzz helps to increase the visibility of actors in this case: one can thus see that the news of June 19, 2010, ie the "case Anelka "aroused much interest on the search engines that defeat the team of France against Mexico on the evening of June 17

Lessons

Throughout the controversy, all of French football players are involved: the Blues (Anelka, Ribery), the coach and the FFF. But the controversy does not seem to find that few official responses on the website by the actors involved. Anelka has only communicated via his Facebook fan page.
What are the lessons to be learned from this negative buzz around the blues? How to consider a digital communication while avoiding the pitfalls of a crisis management difficult? Here are some options:

1. Develop an overall digital strategy to be familiar with these new channels and propose an appropriate response.
2. Communicate continuously exchange to create a dialogue of trust that will help defuse the crisis.
3. Addressing the controversy on your official pages.