Google Marketeer Started Egyptian Revolution on Facebook

If I have this story straight, the new hero of the Egyptian protests in Tahrir Square is Wael Ghonim, who anonymously created a Facebook page that became the rallying point for outrage over the police beating death of Khaled Said, a 28-year-old businessman in Alexandria.

The irony is that Ghonim works in marketing for Google, where he markets Google products in the Middle East and Africa. That's right, the Google guy used Facebook.

By starting a revolution using a rival company's social media product, he must have missed at least one of the 4 P's of Marketing. Product, Price, Promotion - those seem to have gone over reasonably well. It must be Place, that forced-fitting P word that has been tripping up marketing students for generations. A good company man would have looked to distribute his revolution on Blogger or YouTube.

Oh, he also used Twitter. This was tweeted on his Twitter account on January 27, the day he was arrested by Egypt's security forces:

"Pray for #Egypt. Very worried as it seems that government is planning a war crime tomorrow against people. We are all ready to die."

Maybe he needs to do some more work on Price too, "ready to die" seems awfully steep. Still, the Product and Promotion are going very well.