Mediaboss Marketing

How mighty is social media? Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are claiming more scalps meting out justice to Bill Cosby, SeaWorld and Uber. But one real test of social-media is the online drive to get stores to close on Thanksgiving Day.

For now, the stores are winning but only by losing.

Its fast becoming an old story the power of Facebook and Twitter to topple governments and outwit PR experts.

Cosby ignored gruesome rape allegations for years but TV execs couldnt ignore a viral video and virulent Twitter memes. NBC quickly (and wisely) backed away from a new Cosby sitcom. TV Land even canceled old re-runs.

SeaWorld has bled visitors and watched its stock plummet since the Twitterverse amplified a small-scale Blackfish documentary on captive whales.

And after BuzzFeedBen informed everyone that Uber honcho Emil Michael had threatened to blackmail reporters for doing their jobs, customers started deleting Ubers app from their phones forcing Uber to apologize.

So even huge chains like Walmart may be worried about social medias newest target: retailers who open Thanksgiving Day.

The movement against Black Thursday doorbusters is exploding.

Brian Rich, 32, of Idaho, has run Boycott Black Thursday on Facebook for three years. Hed racked up 103,914 likes by last Friday up from 7,000 last year.

Jordana Bishop, 40, of Massachusetts, runs a rival site, Boycott Shopping on Thanksgiving Day. Shes been pretty busy as fans have doubled in the past year, from 6,000 to 10,699. I try to like every post that people add to the site, she says.

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A social boycott: Networking to roll back Thanksgiving store hours