A "boycott BP" movement driven by social media is gathering steam as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico 2010 continues unabated. Humorists are also using social media to affect BP's reputation with bogus a BP Twitter account. Selling like crazy are BP oil like parody products such as t-shirts. But even though BP is living a public relations nightmare, analysts say the giant oil business will see little effect on its profits.

Source for this article: BP Facebook boycott and BP Twitter - PR setback won't hurt profits

Social media hit by BP boycott

BP boycott organizers say purchasing gas from other brands would hit the oil company really bad, short of the ofexpense incurred dealing with the disaster. More than 11,000 signatures were collected on Wednesday by Public Citizen after launching a BP Boycott Pledge on its website. Consumers are told to take their cash advances other places to get gas by a Facebook boycott group called Boycott BP with a lot more than 75,000 members. But convenience may trump the act of signing a pledge online. Also, the Facebook boycott isn’t making any difference. The Washington Post surveyed a whole bunch of customers at BP gas stations across the Washington region. Many drivers said it was pointless to complicate the convenience of filling a gas tank with political or moral questions.

BP Twitter account is rogue

The BP Facebook boycott may not be as effective in undermining BPs reputation as the bogus BP Twitter account @BPGlobalPR. Wednesday the Los Angeles Times reports the fake BP Twitter page had 42,000 followers. There are only 5,700 on BP’s real Twitter account, @BP_America. The bogus BP Twitter account has raised a lot more than $3,000 for the nonprofit Gulf Restoration Network through the sale of $25 BP T-shirts colored green and black to signify money and oil. Fan favorites from the Twitter page contain:

Catastrophe is a strong word, let's all agree to call it a whoopsie daisy. The good news - Mermaids are real. The bad news: They are now extinct. I'm sorry, are people mad at us for drilling in the ocean?!? Maybe God shouldn't have put oil there in the first place. DUH.

The real hit is the BP gas station owners

The BP boycott and BP T-shirts may affect small company BP gas station owners a lot more than the global petroleum behemoth. CNNMoney.com reports that BP doesn't own the 11,500 gas stations that carry its logo. Independent franchises own the BP gas stations. Those BP gas station owners pumped an average of a lot more than 42-million gallons of gas per day last year. An oil business executive explained to CNN that BP, one of the largest oil trading companies in the global market, can sell petroleum products wherever it needs to. Americans not getting BP gas will mean someone else will. BP told CNN that the boycott efforts have had no effect on them.

More data on this topic

The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/25/AR201005...

Los Angeles Times reports

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/05/bpglobalpr.html

CNNMoney.com reports

http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/26/news/companies/boycott_BP/?npt=NP1