Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Social Media Crisis Management
Social Media Crisis Management
Table of Contents
Content
Introduction British Petroleum Ford Motor Nestle Final Words
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Introduction
Social media has drastically changed the landscape of crisis management. With close to 23% of the time spent on the internet on social networks and Google providing threequarters of a billion search results a day, the internet is a giant public library where users have the ease of discovering and spreading information around. What does this mean to companies facing a crisis? It means that when information released is not contained and acted upon quickly, it can spiral out of control. This is particularly applicable to bad news. A video can reach more than ten thousands of views, an article can be shared thousands of times through Facebook and Twitter all in a matter of 24 hours. Companies simply cannot ignore social medias ability to aggravate a crisis and the need to harness it when managing crises.
Introduction
In this ebook, we will explore the dos-and-donts of social media crisis management through an in-depth analysis of three case studies, each from a different industry. We will look at how British Petroleum, Ford Motor Company and Nestle manage their crises and find out what we can learn from them. This serves as a good introduction for any member of the company from executives to board members, on the basics of know-how on crisis management using social media. For each case study, we will first provide an overview of the crisis on how and why it started and spread. Then we detail the turning points of the crises and the companys reactions. Here are key learning points of the ebook: 1. British Petroleum Build relationships before a crisis Assemble a social media crisis management team 2. Ford Motors Communicate effectively Delegating a face as spokesperson 3. Nestle Train your staff for efficiency Importance of creating a social media policy
Copyright 2010 Adonai Training LLP. All rights reserved.
BRITISH PETROLEUM
Overview
Deep Horizon oil spill crisis started from an explosion in an offshore drilling rig that killed 11 and injured 17 of its workers. Since then, oil has been spilling out into the ocean for a few months before it was finally capped. The crisis was fuelled by the BPs inefficiency to stop the spill and blaming other parties for the explosion, and made worse by its then-CEO s (Tony Hayward) insensitive comments about the amount of spill being tiny compared to the size of the ocean and remarking that he would like his life back from the crisis. Social media wise, BP is not new to this concept. It owns a Facebook page, YouTube channel, Twitter account, as well as a Flickr account. However, these tools did not come in handy for BPs crisis management as BP has failed to harness these into managing its crisis effectively and made it worse by buying search engine ads without first tracking sentiments.
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Overview
In December 2008, TheRangerStation.com, a Ford Ranger fan site managed by a Ranger enthusiast, came under legal fire from Ford for violating Fords trademark and intellectual property rights. Ford ordered, through a cease and desist letter to the site owner, Jim Oaks, to pay $5,000 in fines and to surrender the domain name. Oaks has been operating the fan site for a decade and doesnt have the resources to pay the fines or to counter-sue Ford, hence look to the fan site members for support. Over the next twenty-two hours, Jims post received 916 heated responses, most unhappy with how a big company like Ford treats its loyal supporters with such contempt, some mocking this attempt as one Ford adopts to recover its shortfall in revenue. However, unknown to these fans, Ford simply wanted the site to stop selling counterfeit Ford products. The fine and request for the domain name was just a scare tactic employed to stop this sale.
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7: 29am
@Jtegner Thanks for letting me know. Im looking into that this morning.
He checked his account, acknowledged the previous tweet, and subsequently started to investigate and rectify the problem.
Monty announced that Ford has been featured in the media after its efforts for the Big Three Bailout Plan. Constant replies were also made directed to people who asked them. He also made use of hash tag to aid in information search regarding the incident.
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8:32am
Ford makes the front page of USA Today: Ford benefits from CEO's turn to road less travelled @ContractorTalk Im in discussion with our Chief Trademark Counsel about it right now. Im none too pleased. #ford
11: 23am
@Mdurwin @Voltageblog I'm finding it's a much different story from our legal department... @Petertdavis It means we didn't get the full story from the site owners. There's a deeper issue in question. #ford Re the Ford fan site: Im finding that there was counterfeit material being sold on it. Trying to get clarity on the URL issue. #Ford
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4: 34pm
Monty is also on the constant lookout for people who are unaware of his progress to tell them about it. He also answers to questions clarifying Fords actions for people who have missed his constant updated on the investigations. His final tweet on the debacle while asking followers to retweet the message. 25 of his followers responded to this call, retweeting his message to 21,000 more Twitter members. The total time taken for the crisis to start and end was a mere 22 hours and 26 minutes
4:55 p.m.
4: 56pm
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Social Media Learning Point: Listen and tell your side of the story
After the heads-up, Monty began actively sourcing for the root of the problem, twitting his progress and replying to his followers. Not only that, he was able to tweet about Fords side of the story, that Ford simply wanted to stop the site from selling counterfeit Ford products. His listening skills and prompt response certainly saved Ford from further damage and ended the crisis in a mere 23 hours. Always listen to what sentiments are going on with your brand online and engage them to pass on your side of the story. Do make use of free listening tools available online like SocialMention, SiteMention or employ a paid service like Radian6 for a comprehensive review. Remember, never keep quiet. In any crisis, people want answers and accountability. Keeping quiet leaves a gap of unknown for any stories to be filled in. This certainly does not do good to help your situation. Do not disappear off the radar suddenly as well. Such half-hearted engagements will only worsen the situation.
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Social Media Learning Point: Delegate a Face to the Crisis Management Team
To be able to be an effective communicator, you need to be a listener, researcher, and most importantly, being human. Never lose your human touch, particular in crisis management when empathy is most needed. So what can be more human than a real person to represent the crisis management team? In Fords case, Scoot Monty served that purpose effectively. He became the person to go to with any questions on the crisis, and hence containing the crisis to a certain extend. Monty was also the right person for the job as he was in a position of authority who could make things right. When facing crisis of your own, delegate a person of authority to be the face to the crisis management team. This advice is also presented by the social media crisis management efforts by Dominos Pizza and British Petroleum, who both appointed their CEO as the face of the crisis management team.
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Facebook Debacle
NESTLE
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Overview
The crisis was sparked off by Greenpeaces report on how Nestles source of palm oil is damaging rainforests in Indonesia. To show their displeasure, outraged advocates decided to adopt altered Nestles logos as their profile pictures in Facebook. The crisis was, however, made worst and popular by Nestles management of the latter issue about the logos. It posted a status on its fan page telling people not to use such logos as their profile picture when commenting or else their comments will be deleted. Fans retaliated citing that freedom of speech should be respected which has been met with several rude and sarcastic comments from Nestle. This action of theirs brought the attention of social media enthusiasts to pick up the story, trying to figure out the situation, the lessons to be learned, and what should have been done differently. The crisis turned viral. Fortunately, the crisis went viral because of the rude replies, and not so much on the main root of the problem, which meant that the crisis would die down shortly after, which it did. Nestle responded to the palm oil issue by constantly updating its statement, while maintaining minimal engagement with comments on Facebook page . It then ended with an official letter to Greenpeace for future collaboration.
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However, in this post on 19th March where Nestle started to be rude in replying comments, the number of comments jumped to a total of 243 comments. The content of the comments were also different. Supporters stop stating their support while many people were slamming Nestles public relations team instead of their issues with Greenpeace. The comments in this post date from March to July.
Copyright 2010 Adonai Training LLP. All rights reserved.
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Social Media Learning Point: Train Your Staff on the Proper Use of Social Media
Nestle had a good start on crisis management with their Facebook fans expressing their support for Nestle. However, what Nestle did with replying to comments has successfully created a crisis on top their crisis, and rendered it hard for their fans to show continuous support. Your employees manning your social media tools represent your organization and therefore have the capability to affect your brand image. As such, organizations need to train employees the proper way to use and manage these tools. Having a proper social media policy will provide good guidance to your employees as well. In Nestles case, the promptness in replying to comments is applaudable. However, social media is about providing a voice to those who previous dont have one. Hence, by disallowing dissenters to voice their concerns, you risk looking like a bully. If you must control what is spoken, basic manners should have been observed even if copyrights issue is violated, and never insult anyone, whether supporters or protesters alike, on a public forum. Showing that you are polite and professional even to the skeptics can also help boost good publicity in return.
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A social media policy will also help prevent any worsening of your situation by human error like what Nestle has done to itself. It also ensures consistency amongst your team of staff manning the social media platforms, therefore portraying a unified brand image.
Your social media policy should includes protocols on what can be said and what cant, when can information be released and basic rules on replying to comments. You may also wish to include how much time is to be allocated to be spend on social media tools.
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You may drop her an email at Elisha@adonaitraining.com, follow her on Twitter @elishatan or read her blog at www.elishatan.com
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