In the first presidential campaign since social media came of age, the campaigns of President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are both struggling to learn the new rules of the road.

When you're watching the first presidential debate Wednesday night, don't believe what you see. Online, that is. As Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their inevitable slip-ups and fact-challenged assertions, bring your well-trained skepticism to every computer, cell phone and tablet screen near you.

Jokes that seem to catch fire on their own -- remember Clint Eastwood's invisible Obama from the Republican convention? -- might not be quite so organic. Twitter themes that seem to be everywhere might not be popular so much as purchased. And stinging one-liners that show up in your streams and news feeds might make you chuckle, but they are probably half-truths, and most definitely not a great tool for picking the leader of the Free World.

Even if you aren't on Twitter, virtually all political reporters are, and they increasingly take their cues from it. This is the first presidential election in which social media will play a mainstream role, and it's important to remember not everything is as it seems online.

Four years ago, Facebook and Twitter had only just begun to capture the world's imagination (Pew says that 10 percent of the electorate used social media in 2008 to research candidates, and Twitter was scarcely 2 years old on election night). But with this election cycle, the social media giants are now key outlets for candidates to transmit their messages to voters. While social media may appear to offer unfettered, uncontrollable discussion of candidates and their positions, the campaigns are hard at work learning how to manipulate the tools to their advantage. And there's added spice to the Internet element of this season's presidential campaign -- because social media is so new, rules of engagement are lacking.

For example, Barack Obama famously held a surprise virtual town hall on Aug. 29, offering to take questions from Reddit.com users, embracing that site's standard "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) format. The event was unusual because it occurred during the height of the Republican National Convention, breaking the well-established convention that candidates don't upstage each other during their opponent's convention. Obama almost certainly wouldn't have held a traditional press conference that day -- but a Reddit AMA?  Who's to say that was a violation of unwritten politicking rules? When suspicion arose that questions from the AMA might have been less spontaneous than they first appeared, many observers chimed in with cynical reminders that real-world town halls and press conferences also include plants. Who's to say what rules should apply on Reddit?

About the same time, Romney's campaign made what is believed to be the first major campaign purchase of a "sponsored hashtag," attempting to corral discussion on Twitter around the topic "#AreYouBetterOff?" Simultaneously, a parody Twitter account named MexicanMitt was temporarily suspended. A month or two earlier, Romney's number of Twitter followers shot up by a surprising amount. Are such hashtag purchases tasteful? Was suspension of the account coincidental? Is it fair to purchase followers? Again, the online rules aren't clear. 

There is little argument that Obama's campaign, which held an exclusive on grass-roots Internet campaigning last time around, holds a major advantage over Romney on Twitter and Facebook. Some of that is pure demographics -- new Web tools skew younger and more liberal. But some of it is the result of well-timed sarcasm campaigns. Each time Romney trips over his tongue, you can be sure a cascade of social media comedy  -- a "meme," in Internet lingo -- will follow. Sometimes, that's an organic outpouring of creativity. Sometimes, that's the work of an Obama supporter like Matt Ortega. He told Salon earlier this year that he was behind a website named "EtchASketchMittRomney.com," which appeared almost immediately after top Romney aide embarrassingly said that the candidate's campaign positions in the GOP primary could be easily changed, as if they were written on an Etch-A-Sketch. Ortega said he owns dozens of other similarly sarcastic websites, all powered by the pickup they get on Twitter and Facebook. Ortega is a Democratic consultant, but swears the sites are unpaid hobby work.

Turning candidates into punch lines
There's certainly nothing wrong with being funny. Obama's Reddit chat didn't break any rules; neither did Romney's Twitter advertising. But is social media a free-for-all? Perhaps, said Brad Phillips, a media consultant who runs MrMediaTraining.com. But he's not convinced that social media has made things worse. Campaigns have always stretched the rules -- and the truth -- to get any advantage possible, he said.

"Think about the Willie Horton ads (pillorying Michael Dukakis in 1988). So many others," Phillips said. "If the Internet existed in those campaigns, would they have used online tactics? Of course." Nor would campaign managers from elections past have fretted about scheduling a virtual press conference during an opponent's convention, he said. In some ways, he's surprised there hasn't been much evidence presented yet of "dirty tricks" online, such as the whisper campaign during the 2000 primaries alleging that John McCain had an illegitimate child.

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On the other hand, Twitter and Facebook have created one huge new avenue for attack, Phillips said -- the power of humor. Once upon a time, the biggest threat to a candidate could be a misstep so bad that it became fodder for late-night TV humor on Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show."

While that's still true -- an unplanned appearance on David Letterman's Top 10 List can really hurt -- Twitter and Facebook allow campaigns to create their own late night butt-of-joke moments without needing a comedy writer to see it their way. It's easy to argue that the real damage from Clint Eastwood's halting Republican Convention speech came from the hours of sarcastic Tweets and Facebook discussions that began before Eastwood even finished speaking.

"In the past, you knew a crisis had jumped the firewall when it appeared on late night TV as a joke....that meant the issue had gone beyond being just a story for political types," Phillips said. "You wonder if same dynamic is played out now online. If you can make a candidate a punch line (in social media) you've scored a hit."

Phillips also said sarcastic memes could slowly but surely wear down a candidate's chances, cumulatively building and impression that "a candidate is a joke," which would be hard to counteract.

"Is that clean (campaigning)?" he asked. "I don't know. But in future political cycles, I believe candidates will have to pay a lot more attention to this."

Clean or not, University of Virginia professor and presidential politics expert Larry Sabato has been sharply critical of both campaigns -- and political reporters -- for getting caught up in what he calls the "Gaffe Game." Hunting for the next one-liner is a poor way to evaluate presidential candidates, he says.

"When we tire of Gaffe Game, let's have a POTUS Spelling Bee. Would be about as revealing," he said recently in his own Twitter feed.

Scoring points through sarcasm is hardly new, but Sabato believes social media has indeed accelerated the gaffe obsession in this election cycle.

"Many people are on (Twitter) for hours every day. Do they make it worse? Is the pope German? They drain every gaffe of every ounce of meaning and political advantage," he said. "Every time a candidate has a blunder or tongue-twister, Twitter explodes with commentary defending and deriding the candidate."

On the other hand, there is hope, Sabato thinks. Social media seems to accelerate the news cycle, too, meaning that gaffes come and go quicker than they would in the past.

"They … destroy the gaffe quickly -- it burns itself out on Twitter faster than it would otherwise," he said.

Campaign zingers now 140 characters?
So does social media help or hurt the election process? Naturally, it's impossible to say. But it's important to note that voters shouldn't be fooled by what might seem like more personal connections offered by candidates through Facebook "Likes," "personal" e-mails and Tweets. In Phillips' impression, candidates are far more sterilized and prepackaged than ever.

"The candidates are so carefully controlled, access to them is controlled, they are trying to prevent any kind of YouTube moment. (Candidates' moves) are planned within an inch of their lives," he lamented. It's hard to believe that only five presidents ago, reporter Sam Donaldson and President Ronald Reagan sparred during fairly spontaneous press conferences. And vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro spent two hours answering reporters' questions about her tax returns.

Today's candidates usually hide behind carefully orchestrated digital personas, lobbing one-liners over the wall in an attempt to slowly move the needle on the small number of undecided voters who will swing the election.

"Candidates are giving away the ability to have a knockout fantastic answer," he said. "They are just trying to advance in inches not in yards," he said.

That raises the discouraging possibility that the key to who wins and who loses on Nov. 6 could be which candidate comes up with the best joke that fits in 140 characters or fewer.

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A screen capture of Progressive's automated responses that set the social media world on fire.

In the ugly battle of Web users vs. insurance companies, a lot of blood was spilled this week.

We've known for a while that hell hath no fury like an Internet user scorned. But at the intersection of social media, consumer frustration, anxious lawyers and heavy-handed regulations you'll find a particularly tricky corner of the Web. Insurance firms, which have always been a magnet for complaints anyway, lie at precisely this crossroads.  

Increased competition has led insurers to employ high-profile marketing gimmicks, like geckos or touchdown dances, in an effort to become household names with friendly reputations. That means it's become necessary for them to establish a social media presence. Progressive's "Flo" character, for instance, has her own Facebook page, with hundreds of thousands of fans. But inviting social dialogue sometimes means inviting trouble, as Flo and her handlers found out the hard way this week.

Progressive encountered a Twitter revolt after the family of a woman killed in a car crash wrote a blog post criticizing the way the firm fought to avoid paying a claim. The post went viral, and the insurance giant then compounded its problems by spitting out automated tweets in response.

Experts who talked about the incident this week said Progressive fell into a trap that often catches large companies as they stumble around the social media world.

"The original response sounded genuine," said Jason Falls, a digital marketing consultant who helped health care firm Humana set up its social media program. "But the fact that they auto-responded the same statement to multiple people showed it was just a copy-and-paste job. More often than not, when that happens, it's not the technology that's to blame. You can blame it on the legal and compliance teams saying, 'You can say this and only this.' It makes you look cold and insensitive."

Both sides have willingly joined the insured-vs-insurers Internet fight. Insurance firms increasingly use the Web as a weapon against fraud, while consumers band together to demand better service, or to appeal denials of coverage. Both can claim victories. There are plenty of stories of insurance investigators who catch disability recipients bragging about completing triathlons on their Facebook pages or tweeting about a great trip to Paris while claiming depression. Meanwhile, earlier this month, a social media firestorm caused Aetna to back down and agree to cover colon cancer treatment costs for an Arizona patient who'd already exceeded his lifetime cap. A flurry of angry tweets really can make a big company reverse course.

'Shame on you'
Fall said he's used to seeing nasty comments pile up on insurance company blogs, Facebook pages and in Twitter feeds.

"It does make me cringe, but I also think it comes with the territory," he said.

It doesn't take long to find cringe-worthy comments on insurance company social media sites. Even days after the initial Progressive firestorm, comments left on Progressive's otherwise happy "Flo the Progressive Girl" Facebook page were dominated by vitriol: "Shame on you," says one. "Has Flo ever wondered why Progressive tries to get killers off the hook?" says another. Many writers called on the actress who plays Flo to quit.

Flo's hardly alone, however. When American Medical News did a survey of health insurance Twitter accounts last year, it found a never-ending stream of complaints:

*"Dear Cigna: How about, for the new year, you do something radical - like processing claims without 500 phone calls from me?"

* "Dear Humana, you've ruined my day. Worse, my wife's day. Way to CYA. I'm paying you to cover mine."

*"@Anthemhealth, so far u didn't send me my ID cards … kept me on hold for 25 mins and ur site isn't lettng me register. Nice service."

Insurance, necessarily, involves rejection. When you are in the business of frequently disappointing people, and making sure your rejections are lawsuit-proof, it's nearly impossible to run a free-spirited social media shop. Rachel Poor, who runs the social media marketing firm Thread Communications, said all heavily regulated industries face the Progressive dilemma.

"I think social media is still a sort of an enigma (to them). They all want to be there, they are told they should be there, but these companies are not used to people talking back to them in such a public forum," she said. "Ultimately, I think it will require insurance agencies to change the way they do business.”

Greg Matthews, a director at social media consulting agency WCG in Austin, said insurance companies often have to go into a Twitter or Facebook fight with one hand tied behind their backs.

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"Particularly in health care or financial services, there are privacy-related issues that you just can't discuss," he said. For example, if a patient complains about an uncovered medical procedure, the insurance company can't publicly talk about the patient. "People want you to be transparent and authentic all the time, but you just can't. ... It can be terribly frustrating.”

Falls said companies he works with expect the occasional public flogging after turning on a Twitter account, and they manage to survive by planning ahead.

"The thing I've tried to do with any client opening up its customer service channels -- you have to have a crisis communications plan mixed with a customer service plan," he said.  "You have to anticipate what will happen. ... Companies that dive in without a plan of attack for those situations are finding it difficult."

No stiff upper lip?
Automatic and formulaic responses have gotten many companies through old-fashioned media crises, Falls said. For example, journalists are often tolerant of canned answers, he noted -- but they typically don't fly on social media. If a Twitter response doesn't sound like it's written by a real person in response to a real person, the company is likely going to take a hit to its reputation. On the other hand, when million-dollar settlements might be at stake, no insurance company lawyer is going to be comfortable with a social media employee free-lancing responses. So Falls suggests a middle path.

"You have to have a lawyer on staff who can be on call and help your social media team craft communications in crisis situations," he said. "When you have a big publicity problem, you have your legal team working hand-in-hand with PR. Why wouldn't you do the same thing in the social media world?"

In general, he recommends that firms post a detailed, formal response on a website, and instruct their social media writers to tweet or post links to it, while adding personal notes separately. 

There are challenges, however: Many lawyers and companies don't have the stiff upper lip needed to ride out a social media crisis.

"Any industry that's heavily regulated will always have a layer of legal and compliance teams that have to be trained, and have to buy in," he said. "It can be done with the right legal team. But if you have a team that constantly says ‘no,’ it'll never work."

Matthews said effective social media must also be fast, and that's often unfamiliar territory for insurance firms.

"It means really changing processes that companies use. Rather than convening the executive committee for two days to make a decision about things, boil it down to the two or three people who can actually make a decision in hours and not days," he said.

It also means knowing who the influencers are in certain topics ahead of time, and planning to engage those people immediately when a crisis hits.

"It's not that hard to know these days who are the folks likely to be influential in this conversation," Matthews said. "You know what the top 10 issues that you might face are, and you know who is likely to be the most influential when those stories break, the people who might take your side or be opposed. ... Ask yourself how do you engage them. What is the content you can bring to bear that articulates your position rather than letting the public run wild. You can never control the conversation, but you can make sure your side is heard."

Finally, and most important, companies have to actually deliver on their promises, perhaps in a way they never have before, Matthews said. If a Twitter user complains and is asked to call customer service by a social media worker, that customer service experience had better be positive, Matthews warns. Otherwise, the angry consumer will have heavy new ammunition for waging a social media war.

"It really helps you find your skeletons in the closet," he said. "You have to have a mindset that you are grateful your customers are telling you what you are doing wrong, and you have the opportunity a chance to fix it. I know a lot of companies, maybe most companies, don’t feel that way, but that’s the only way to be successful in social media.”

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“The CADJPY is testing the rising trend line dating back to Nov. 2,” announced the blonde bombshell in a low-cut bikini top, discussing with seeming gravitas and authority technical levels for the value of the Canadian dollar against the Japanese yen. “Despite consumer prices and retails sales topping expectations.”

Her Twitter name, 15k, gave little hint to her identity, but there was something about her that made me more interested than usual in currency exchange rates.

So I clicked through to her account, and then to her Twitter page, hoping for exciting fever charts, perhaps of the British Pound against the U.S. Dollar.

Instead, I saw this rather disappointing picture:

Whoever he is, he looks nothing like the blonde. Even more disappointing, he seems to know nothing about exchange rates. He just wants my money.

The Web page I've landed on, PS-Capital.com, says it represents a "Singapore Arbitraged Hedge Fund." This pilot seems polite -- notice the words "thank you" imprinted on the photograph.  He doesn't inspire confidence, but at least he's honest in explaining that the fund is a startup "awaiting funding to establish a track record." Then, he pleads for $1,000 to $10,000 payments via PayPal to help establish seed funding.

Not tempted by the offer, I scroll down further, and realize this page is a two-for-one sales pitch.  The pilot is also an Internet marketing expert, it seems.  For $50, he will sell me 500 Twitter followers.

"Let me further sweeten the deal for you. I am an expert on Twitter, self taught. I am also good enough on Wordpress, again self taught," he writes. "I am not good enough to do fancy stuff but I can create an automated blog. What does an automated blog do? ... Basically it pulls in traffic, lots of it. And by plugging in a Clickbank Id, an Adsense Id it could automatically generate revenue which is ENDLESS. It may not be much initially but it would grow and small even as it is, it just goes on and on."

Welcome to the seedy world of Twitter marketing. Spammers and other web advertising click scams have made their way through every Internet technology, so it's no surprise that they've taken over Twitter, too.  Their methods are always the same -- steal clicks, sell ads against them, then try to upsell some other crazy service.  Clicking through 15k's original Canadian currency post -- instead of her profile -- yields a link to a page promising a rather precise return on a Facebook investment: "Here's How YOU Can Make $144,823.37 Using Facebook™!"

At least the author honors Facebook's trademark. He or she does hijack your browser on that page, however, and won't let visitors leave without quitting the application.

The spam scam plays out in a unique way on Twitter, however, as marketers are forced to get attention in 140 characters or less.  Enter the "Women of Twitter." The women likely have nothing to do with the ads, and their images may have been used without their knowledge. That's a common and distasteful tactic. In a particularly egregious form of image theft, msnbc.com several years ago chronicled the story of a woman whose picture was stolen from a personal ad, then widely used as an ad for a pornography Web site.

So I decided to follow up on 10 Women of Twitter tweets to see where they took us. They are easy to find: Just do a search for any popular topic, like 'iPad." Many of them feign interest in financial news or other world events, but the accounts are simply set up to automatically pull in and post news headlines and to generate keyword hits based on newsworthy topics. The crazy tweets this generates is reminiscent of the "word salad," spam that was in vogue a couple of years ago, when billions of emails were sent containing what seemed to be the world's worst Haiku. 

In each case, I attempted to directly contact the poster and conduct an interview but had no luck. I did get one rather ironic response, however.

In my Top 10 list, which consists of 15k and nine others, I'm using the pronoun "her" to describe each account because the picture is female. But I have no idea of the real gender of the account holder.

Twitter, of course, has publicly said it is trying to fight spam like this, but it did not respond to requests for comment for this story. You can see our ongoing list of the Women of Twitter here, but please don't click on any of their profiles. You can also http://twitter.com/RedTapeChron">follow me.

"Toopweb" is pretty direct in her pose, and her message. The "try me" note posted on her picture has little to do with struggling British homeowners, but we clicked anyway.  Her profile page goes nowhere, but she's a prolific writer. She's already posted 6,000 tweets -- sometimes, she posts several an hour -- and has pulled in 600 followers. Her current concern at our last visit? "Early childhood education schools LearnmoreMN Blog: How to rebuild the foundation of Minnesota's education system."

This Twitter user has a much more obvious business model.  Her "real name" is "DVD Bluray," and her profile links to a website that upsells movies.  Mind you, she carries no merchandise -- all the links on that site are affiliate links for Amazon.com, where Naritiwas gets a cut for every sale. She has about 4,500 followers. Her Tweets are equally varied. Her most recent tweet on our visit? "Car accidents in Los Angeles County -- Expert Attorneys Wanted."

I write a lot about personal finance issues, so it was natural for me to visit the account named "Budgetingtips4u." I was disappointed, however, with the advice I got there. The first Tweet I read: "Alarm Clock Lamp Article: Alarm Clock Lamp Article It's difficult to provide accurate Alarm Clock Lamp information."  If anything, alarm clocks in my life are far too accurate. The "real" name Budgetingtips4u gives is Kasy Alutman, but that gets me nowhere. It's not hard to discern her real motivation, however: Her most recent tweet was "Traffic Building Tips When You Get Stuck | TRAFFIC BUILDING « Learn Traffic Building."

I came closest to real contact when I reached out to Savvypromoter. She seems to be a real person engaged in real Internet marketing promotion -- at least judging by her YouTube videos, which promise watchers a work-at-home business that includes a "system that is going to change your life," and enable early retirement. She says her name is Amanda Powlesland and that she's originally from New Zealand. She describes herself as an "Entrepreneur, Internet Marketer, Counsellor, Philanthropist, International traveller, Nature lover, CarbonCopyPro Member." Despite this, her tweets also seem like automated headlines. Here's one: "China mobile subscriber total rises to 833.1 million in Nov (Reuters): Reuters - China Mobile…."

I followed her on Twitter, and sent her an e-mail at what seems to be her legitimate e-mail account, requesting an interview.  I had hard-hitting questions in mind.  Here's the response I got:

"Thanks for trusting me! Do you want to know an easy 'paint by numbers' approach to earning an extra $3000 per month: "

I wouldn't trust her.

"KC Fong" is the name connected to this account, which holds the record in our group for most prolific. She's sent 186,000 tweets. She also seems oddly interested in small-town New Jersey property crimes, despite her stated location of Las Vegas.  Her profile page is about as subtle as her picture. It links to "lofu.offershop.us," an amalgamation of online retailer clicks.

"Our Web site is a third party marketing website for companies such as Netflix, Cash4Gold, and many more," the site says. You'll notice that Toopweb, mentioned earlier, follows KC Fong suggesting a) She wants to learn from a master Tweeter or b) the accounts might be controlled by the same person or organization.

This not-the-girl-next-door account posts innocuous and varied headlines all day long. Some sports headlines ("Packers backup QB nearly knocks off Tom Brady!), some tech news ("Sonex electric completes first test flight") and even world entertainment news ("Survivor: Nicaragua – Live Reunion Show!). On my first visit, she was tweeting about Yogi Bear, the movie.  But the account is really a doorway to something more serious. She follows 730 other tweeters, most of which seem to be escort services. Her first five Twitter pals are "Lost Angeles Escorts," "Detroit Escorts," "Washington D.C. escorts," "Calgary escorts," and "Toronto escorts" -- she obviously has gone international. Notes left on those pages seem to suggest they serve as authentic classified ads for paid sex.

Acaiberrybible takes a very different tack than our other Women of Twitter.  Her tweets are all on one topic, focused on weight loss and health benefits of certain foods. Like the others here, she both follows and is following about 2,400 accounts, suggesting quite a bit of account sharing going on. It also suggests the spammers know just how many followers they can accumulate before getting on the radar of Twitter's spam fighters.  This account holder says she's in Los Angeles, and I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that her profile links to a Web page devoted to selling a "free" trial of acai berries.  In an interesting mix of techniques, the page is also part of the "fakosphere," complete with a blog and supposed random reader comments from people who lost weight after signing up. There's even advertisements from Groupon, pulled in via one of those marketing affiliate arrangements.

LainaMedoza3200, whose names sounds more like a computer model than a clothing model, also takes a different strategy. She claims to be giving away from iPads!  But interspersed with those aggressive offers, she produces some of the best poetry among the Women of Twitter.

"My good lord, I am so pleased to see you, he gushed, a soft eunuch's smile on his powdered face," reads one tweet. "The weirwoods were beyond the Wall, yet he knew Sam meant what he said," reads another.

A quick Internet search reveals the posts are pulled -- not from a news feed -- but from a fantasy novel called "A Game of Thrones" by George R. R. Martin. At least she's literary.  I hope Martin receives some royalties for this.

Finally, it should be obvious why I was attracted to "hotnewss."  I'm interested in any and all news scoops. Without apology, hotnewss -- who says her name is, ironically, Jane Rich -- links to random wire stories from around the world, like "Police arrest 12 men in counter-terrorism raids (Reuters)." And her profile links to a webpage that also throws together random headlines, Google News style, called wharfyouth.org, with the awkward label "Latest Update Headline News" -- but not before passing users through a page named MyGoogleTrends.info. The domain for that page is registered to someone listing the name "Bung Sa" in Singapore. No word if Bung Sa is starting a hedge fund.

Justine Gabbard of Long Island had just been charged hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees by Bank of America -- for the second time -- and just couldn't take it anymore.  So she sat down in front of her Web cam and got a few things off her chest.

"I have a bone to pick with Bank of America," she began. "I got $400 in overdraft fees, and I never bounced a check."

Gabbard was talking to herself in her bedroom, in what might be described as a video "message in a bottle."  But instead of throwing her complaint into the sea, she uploaded it to YouTube -- where thousands of viewers soon found it.

"It happened twice to me, so it kind of drove me over the edge," she said.

Consumers like Gabbard have turned what was once a trickle of Internet complaints into an avalanche of revenge against corporate America, a trend that brings both opportunity and peril to American companies.

Soon after Gabbard posted video, thousands of other angry bank customers loaded their own video rants about overdraft fees, besieging Bank of America and its competitors with bad blood.  Some even include detailed instructions on how to sue banks in small claims court and corresponding success stories.

YouTube is now home to perhaps tens of thousands of video consumer complaints, an uprising and headache for any public relations department.

Twitter also is fast becoming the new home for consumer rants.  A Twitter user named @BoycottFunai recently started enrolling friends, family and followers into a planned action against the maker of Slyvania TVs.  Unhappy with a new flat-screen model that stopped working after a few months, the pair of roommates named Tavie and Gina were even less happy when Funai refused to offer a refund.  They started @BoyCottFunai and, after they gained a decent-sized following, a full refund check arrived via FedEx.

Stories of Internet revenge by angry consumers have become part of Web lore. There's the "Cancel the Account" America Online phone call, the Sleeping Comcast technician and, more recently, the United Breaks Guitars hit song, viewed 5 million times on YouTube.

But beneath the layer of all-time hits and viral videos is a trend that suggests a brand new paradigm in customer service.  Ben Popken, who runs consumer complaint site Consumerist.com, says that thanks to the Internet, large companies can no longer afford to ignore unsatisfied customers.

"Every company wants to be on (online) showing they are hip, cool, engaging in the conversation," he said. "So you can't ignore problems that people bring to your doorstep online."

In a sign that random viral complaints have become a part of established consumer-corporate interactions, Consumerist.com was recently acquired by Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports.

Twitter users fight back
Online tools give consumers new ways to circumvent traditional customer service channels.  Each new technology seems to open up a new door, Popken said. Recently, he said,  an anonymous consumer who couldn't get through to Hewlett Packard using normal methods created a Twitter account called @HPDoesntCare and started "following" every Twitter user who seemed connected to HP.  Then, he or she would Tweet about every phone call gone bad.

The mass appeal worked. The only tweet left on the account now is "Thanks HP. It is finally over. For real. :)"

Using a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, or even old-fashioned e-mail can break through frustrating company logjams. It's a simple matter of public shame, Popken says.

"It's a basic human instinct to avoid public shame and humiliation. Society is built on shame," he said. Before the Web, companies could mistreat consumers in relative obscurity.  That's harder now, he said. "Using the megaphone power of video blogging or an exposed Twitter conversation is a way to get these companies to wake up to the fact that they are violating social norms.  To say, 'Maybe you are used to behaving this way, but here in the real world, what you just did is pretty messed up."

There's a positive side for companies in all this. Never before has it been so easy to identify unhappy consumers and to make amends.  After a long bout of negative Internet publicity, Comcast appointed Frank Eliason to be its "director of digital care." Eliason -- using the handle @ComcastCares -- goes looking for troubled Comcast users and reaches out to them.

The Web complaint phenomenon represents an opportunity for companies to finally shed the customer-service-as-cost-center model, and instead adopt a new strategy that includes good service as a marketing opportunity, Popken said. 

"Every Twitter management team's secret dream is that what they do will turn into a 'twitter-gasm,' " and be noticed by thousands of users, he said.  With Twitter, Facebook and YouTube now a part of many marketing campaigns, it's natural to have the same employees who design social media ads handle social media complaints.  After all, one viral YouTube video can wipe out the goodwill created by a multi-million dollar ad campaign.

'You have maybe an hour'
Todd Defren runs a public relations firm called Shift Communications that specializes in online campaigns. He says Twitter is particularly troublesome for companies because consumers tend to complain impulsively about even the most trivial missteps (my water isn't cold enough!). But when they do, they can create a permanent online record that irks company executives. Making matters worse is the intense network effects of services like Twitter.

"Before, when there was a nasty blog post, you had perhaps 24 hours to respond before it was a big deal. But in the microblogging world, you have maybe an hour," Defren said.

Ignoring complaints carries obvious risks, but so does addressing them, he said.  Particularly during a recession, companies can't afford to staff up and address every negative Twitter post.

"Big companies we're working with are scared witless and don't know what to expect. They are willing to listen, but they know that as soon as they engage they are opening themselves up," he said.

Popken thinks all these new communications technologies have the potential to create a new golden age for consumer rights, as the balance of power is tilting a bit towards consumers after a prolonged losing streak.

"Every possible inroad is another vector to take advantage of, to get satisfaction," Popken said.

But there is a looming dark side for consumers.  Generally, a small percentage of mistreated consumers follow through with complaints.  "Noisy" consumers serve an important function for the silent majority, calling attention to problems that often results in solution for all. Without these pesky shoppers, firms could more easily abuse the rest.

Thanks to the Web, it's now infinitely easier for companies to find -- and quiet -- the loudest consumers. A divide-and-conquer strategy could ultimately lead to even worse treatment for consumers.

But Defren said he's not worried about that. As complaining gets easier and easier, he expects everyone to jump on the bandwagon.

"The friction of making yourself heard is only getting lower and lower," he said.   

RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS
Perhaps you don't think of yourself as the rabble-rousing, shoot a video rant and put it on YouTube type. That's OK.  It's easy to find a company bulletin board using a search engine and post your complaint there, like these consumers who were angry at T-Mobile did.

A more effective technique is to scour the Internet for e-mail addresses belonging to corporate executives – as many as you can find – and send them all a well-considered, action-oriented demand letter. Some sample letters can be downloaded here.

The folks at Consumerist.com have boiled this process down to a science they call the Executive E-mail Carpet Bomb.  They've posted detailed instructions here.

For easy access to a list of company leaders who can actually fix your problems, visit ExecutiveBomb.com.

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