The Business Lessons from Twitter's Role in Iran

This is not a good time to hold a title like the “Supreme Leader” in Iran. For a week now, huge crowds of protesters have been defying Iran’s autocratic leadership to demand political change.

Over that time, it has become clear that what started as a protest against the official results of a disputed Presidential election is actually something much broader – a challenge to the regime of the clerics who have controlled the country for the past 30 years.

A few days ago, I spoke with Thomas White of Business Matters about these developments. He pointed out that from a business perspective there are many lessons to be learned. “Iran as a state is a brand, and the Supreme Leader is the brand manager,” he said. “He is losing control of his brand because he did not understand how social media have handed custody of all brands over to the crowd.”

This, indeed, is one of the main realities all businesses, including media companies like CNN need to learn – that they henceforth will have to share their brand management with consumers.

To the credit of CNN, it is proving to be a quick study.

Although the network initially drew the anger of many by ignoring the beginnings of the protests in Tehran, since then it has worked hard to catch up. Social media have now become a staple of the network’s news coverage of events in Iran.

Now that the regime has imposed a blackout against foreign media, CNN’s staff is working hard to interpret messages and photos that continue to flow over Twitter, and videos over YouTube, to provide journalistic perspective.

Meanwhile, as has been the case since this historic rebellion began, the best source of coverage is at Twitter. Here is a sampling of the reports arriving by the thousands per minute via the top trending topic, #IranElection:

• http://bit.ly/11ehfT #iranelection mousavi a girl got shot by iranian regim less than 10 seconds ago from web (Warning: This is graphic and disturbing– D.W.)
  
• rosa_rugosa Best slogan to chant and to support #iranelection protests: DON’T BE SCARED! DON’T BE SCARED! WE’RE ALL TOGETHER! less than 10 seconds ago from web
• @PersianKiwi: (Tehran) Thousands marching, protesting, supporting Mousavi: http://bit.ly/TgIJf (video) #IranElection less than 20 seconds ago from web
• @mousavi1388: I am prepared For martyrdom, go on strike if I am arrested #IranElection #fb http://myloc.me/4FqH less than 20 seconds ago from UberTwitter
• proteheran RT Injured may be taken to German Embassy Tehran: Avenue Ferdowsi 320-324 emergeny tel.no. 0098-912-1131007 #iranelection #gr88 less than 10 seconds ago from web
• StopAhmadi2 RT Basij stopping route main protests meant rallies/protest all areas &districts Tehran. The fire spreading #gr88 #iranelection less than 10 seconds ago from web
• @PsiphonIran: RT @Madyar: Heavy clashes on azadi street, chants of death to khameni! The street is full of rocks and fire. #IranElection less than 20 seconds ago from TwitterFon

What this kind of reportage means for the media industry cannot be overstated. We are witnessing the birth of a global real-time, networked, interactive media system that will change the way all of the rest of us conduct oursleves from this point on.