The Sochi Olympic Games have not been kind to the social media teams of Olympic Sponsors, at least in the west. Social media campaigns for both McDonald's and Coca-Cola have been essentially shut down by LGBT and human rights protestors. Contributing writer to Forbes, Avi Dan chronicled the woes they have faced saying, "For Coke And McDonald's, Ignoring The Power Of Social Media To Disrupt Means No Medals In Sochi."
Writing at Mashable about Sochi 2014 Olympic sponsors' social media "war rooms," T.L. Stanley suggested
"...sponsors such as Visa and McDonald’s also may consider logging time to answer their critics, who have hijacked the sponsors’ Olympics-themed Twitter hashtags to protest Russia’s anti-gay crackdown."
There is yet another way human rights and LGBT activists can leverage an existing sponsor social media campaign to speak both words of protest, and words of support for LGBT equality in Russia and worldwide. This Achilles Heel of Russia's censorship has been hiding in plain site since McDonald's
#CheersToSochi hashtag was first hijacked in January.
And although McDonald's has abandoned the use of the #CheersToSochi hashtag, the Cheers To Sochi campaign website is still up and functioning and according to their press and social media posts, still a conduit to talk to Olympic athletes and teams who are right now behind the Putin's Lavender Iron Curtain.
Past the fold, how McDonald's Cheers To Sochi site can be used as a conduit to speak out on human and LGBT rights right into the Olympic Village.
McDonald's been keeping their fans updated on how their sponsored athletes check in to read these messages, like bobsledder Lolo Jones, pictured below:
It would be so easy for the collective human rights supporters to virtually crash this party. (Or crash this virtual party?) McDonald's even made a video explaining how your messages get to the Olympic Village in Sochi.
So, I decided to use McDonald's website to send my own message to Sochi:
Speak out on human rights in Russia! Support Russian gays! Please!
If you're familiar with the internet, you should be able to use McDonald's
Cheers To Sochi site pretty easily. It is pretty self-explanatory and as easy as signing your average internet petition. You just need an email address or a Twitter account. You're given the option to select an individual or a Team. I selected a Team USA because they're there to represent me. But if you have a favorite Olympian, by all means, ask them personally. The International Olympic Committee has made it easy to find your favorite athlete at the
The Olympic Athletes' Hub, (there are also apps for iPhone and Android).
The language of the message you send is entirely your perogative. After you've sent your message to Sochi, like many sites, it asks you to spread the word by providing easy links to let you Tweet and post to Facebook about it. The default language can be edited and I would suggest you do so to incorporate themes of LGBT equality and respect for human rights. And of course, the #CheersToSochi hashtag.
If you're a novice, there is a short video at the top of this post that walks you through the steps as the #CheersToSochi protest campaign creates an example message. As of this writing, there at about 5,000 messages sent through the McDonald's site, according to their counter. How about we double that this weekend?
In addition to this site being your opportunity to speak directly to an Olympian, McDonald's also is offering athletes the opportunity to print out fan messages on ribbons, and wear them! So, your request to end the Olympic silence on Russia's human rights abuses could possibly be worn by your favorite Olympian!
The demonstration video above is three minutes long, that's more time than it takes to send a cheer to Sochi in support of basic human rights.
Learn more about the #CheersToSochi protest campaign: on the web; Twitter; Facebook, Tumblr; Pinterest.