Category: Organization Development

An example of a poorly handled social media crisis

Shouting from your soapbox that offended stakeholders are wrong, deleting Facebook comments, banning users, and finally a full 180 and mea culpa – Austrialian org Black Milk Clothing ran the full circle of poorly handled social media crisis management, and it all started with a single post:

Followers of the page instantly pointed out that the image seems very much to be a violation of one of Black Milk’s self-imposed “Facebook Commandments”, ““You shall not make critical comments about other women’s bodies.”, and a highly volatile discussion about the brand’s seeming misogyny and body shaming leapt into existence.

Instead of stepping back and examining what had upset so many stakeholders, Black Milk’s social media staffers started cranking out posts ranging from defensive to insanely passive-aggressive. Here’s a quote from one:

“If the fan page offends you and you don’t like the way we roll, you probably want to unlike the fan page. If that experience causes you to have negative feelings towards the company itself, then you can always stop shopping with us. We’ll understand.”

You can pick your jaw up from the floor now, but suffice to say it went on like that for some time. With fans flying off the handle following these responses, the company then started swinging the ban stick left and right. The furor began spreading to other social networks, and critics around the web were throwing hate towards Black Milk.

Finally, after nearly 48 hours of constant negative attention, Black Milk published a lengthy apology to Facebook:

I want to start off by saying I am incredibly sorry for everything that has happened over the last couple of days.

We made a mistake and we apologise sincerely.

The intention behind the meme was to share a personal experience, and never meant to offend anyone. We misjudged the line between funny and offensive, and underestimated the true impact it would have. I am so sorry.

The senior management at Black Milk take full responsibility for the post and the way complaints following the post were handled. Any criticism should be directed there, and not to the social media team who were simply acting under the direction of management.

I want you guys to know that this wonderful, diverse community means so much to me personally. Having gone to meet ups and being involved in all the amazing things you guys do for each other is such a humbling experience. I don’t want to think that what has taken years to build could be jeopardised.

We are taking ownership of this situation, from the original post to the way complaints were handled. I will work together with the Black Milk team to ensure we learn from this.

We are a small, passionate team who truly value the friendships we have with you guys. I hope that the past four years are a testament to how proud we are of the diversity and inclusiveness within our communities. In saying that, we are human and unquestionably have made a mistake.

Again, we are truly sorry for everything that has happened. I really hope any damage caused over the last few days can be repaired.

This community is such a special place and we want everyone to fun and share the love.

Social network taking heat after failing to consider not every memory of 2014 is a happy one

Facebook’s “Year in Review” was created to help users celebrate the events of 2014 (and of course drive engagement with the social network), but for many who experienced less-than-pleasant times the notifications come as unrelenting reminders of things they’d rather forget. From repeatedly seeing the faces of loved ones who have passed to being reminded of painful breakups, many Facebook users are complaining that Year in Review is inappropriate and intrusive.

One bereaved father became the face of this problem after blogging about the app reminding him of his daughter who had passed, and Facebook did eventually reach out to apologize to him personally, as well as offering this statement to the media:

“[The app] was awesome for a lot of people, but clearly in this case we brought him grief rather than joy. It’s valuable feedback. We can do better — I’m very grateful he took the time in his grief to write the blog post.”

This is a perfect reminder of why every brainstorming session needs that person who’s looking for flaws, who’s constantly asking the question, “how could this go wrong?” The folks at Facebook are certainly intelligent, and it doesn’t take a major stretch of the imagination to see that many wouldn’t want to have the previous year’s events thrust in their face. Then the Year in Review app could still have been released, but as an opt-in feature, and the strife they’ve put a large number of stakeholders through could have been avoided.

Don’t surround yourself with yes-men, take advantage of that doubting tendency to better protect yourself. It may throw a wrench in the works from time to time, but your crisis management capabilities will be enhanced immensely as a result.

Good crisis management means being aware of, and preparing for, the possible outcomes of your actions

There’s been a lot of discussion about demands from hackers that Sony not release “The Interview” due to its targeting of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, but in a recent interview with PRWeek Bernstein Crisis Management president Jonathan Bernstein brought up a side of the issue that few have mentioned:

“What Sony did was the equivalent of waltzing into a bad neighborhood with a pocketful of cash hanging out when it named [Kim Jong-un] as the target of its new film,” says Jonathan Bernstein, president of Bernstein Crisis Management. “What the people there should be saying is: ‘We take responsibility for this, we used poor judgment, and here’s how we’re going to fix it and cop a better attitude in terms of the two executives steeped in it.’”

It’s clear that Sony discarded even the possibility of action by its target, and was left reeling as a result. Bottom line is, when you know you’re poking a bee’s nest, you need to have a plan to cope with the potential outcomes, from the very mild to the most extreme. It’s just smart crisis management.

Genuine care delivers crisis management dividends

We see a lot of apologies these days, but more often than not they fail to hit home. Whether they’re lacking critical components like compassion, competence and confidence dragging or they take the route of the ugly “non-apology”, it seems tough for many to say “I’m sorry”.

That’s why, when our colleague Phil Cogan forwarded this spectacular message that went out to customers of car service car2go, we knew we had to share:

Yesterday, at 4:30pm CST, our car2go vehicles experienced a disruption in service that was directly related to our Germany-based mobile provider. At that time, our provider had undergone a malfunction within their network that disabled cell phone roaming, resulting in a break in remote connection with all of our car2go vehicles across North America and their network in Germany. Thus, members were not able begin or end their trips until the issue was resolved at 12:54am CST today.

Actions are quickly being taken to mitigate this occurrence from happening again, but in complete transparency, since we are only 24 hours fresh, we are at the beginning stages of analysis to understand the root causes with our provider. Stability of our network has always and is still a core focus, but last night’s disruption strengthened our resolve to get a solution more quickly.

We all here at car2go feel the disappointment and the distress that we put many of you through. We heard it through phone calls, tweets, posts, and emails since the disruption started. For those members who have shared, “That’s it…I am done with car2go.” I totally understand why. But I hope that you know that each of us here are members as well, and that with each heartfelt apology we wrote – we sincerely meant it. We didn’t shy away from this event – we owned up to it as quickly as we found out, and worked throughout the night to communicate to all of you via the channels we have in the toolbox. Are there things we need to improve with the communications? There’s always room for improvement, but please know that it was my call to utilize the resources we had to its maximum impact.

For those who were directly impacted, our teams will be in contact with you shortly, if they haven’t already. For many of our members who were indirectly impacted, I can tell you that it is on us to restore your faith in our service in the days, months, and years to come.

After this week’s announcement of car2go being the largest carsharing company in the world, I could look at this as a huge embarrassment. But to be honest with you, last night’s disruption was a defining moment for us. It showed me – and all of our team members across North America – that even though we are the largest carsharing company in the world, we remained true to you, our members – that during a sensitive time, we demonstrated the responsibility and the compassion as a leading brand should. I saw and heard the grace our car2go team exhibited into the early morning hours working on this issue, and I also saw and heard the many of you say “Thanks, car2go – we still love ya.” And that, that means the world to us.

On behalf of car2go, I truly apologize for the inconvenience and trouble that the disruption caused you, and I want to promise each of you that, as a company, we will continue to improve and innovate our service to help you get from Point A to B with complete ease. And for those who have expressed their disdain for our apologies, I ask that you don’t put that on our team – the team who will be working hard the next several days on this, put that anger on ME.

Personally committed,

Paul DeLong
Chief Marketing Officer
car2go NA, LLC

Above & beyond, ladies and gentlemen. This apology came across as genuine because it was, with CMO Paul DeLong’s concern for his customers showing through and through. Communication like this is the kind that saves stakeholders on their way out the door, as well as snagging new ones intrigued by your handling of a trying situation. Kudos car2go, for providing this excellent example of crisis management done right.

What are the implications for crisis management as the social networks beats out Twitter for most active users?

Photo-sharing service Instagram announced this week that it had officially bypassed Twitter to take the title of “most active users”. Boasting more than 300 million monthly active users who share more than 70 million photos and videos each day, the network has come a long way from its humble beginnings in 2010.

Staying on top of the most popular networks being used by stakeholder groups is a must for crisis management, and after seeing this announcement we asked ourselves a question organizations all around the world should be asking themselves as well – what are the implications of Instagram’s popularity as far as coping with crises goes?

What we believe is that, in its current form, Instagram is best used for rebuilding after crises. Messaging hubs like blogs and websites are more effective for delivering multiple types of content, as well as for redirecting stakeholders who are seeking information from various social networks to a place you control, where you can share your story in a complete manner. Once the communication is out there, though, you still have to actually FIX the issue, and that’s where Instagram comes in. Imagine if BP had immediately sent out cleaning crews to affected areas after its massive oil spill, and every crew had a dedicated Instagrammer posting pictures of the cleanup in action. Suddenly, pictures are being shared, positive sentiment is generated, and the organization responsible for an incident that left many upset and angry is shown to walking their talk with undeniable images.

Of course, this is just one possibility, and we’d like to challenge to our readers to come up with their own ways to use Instagram for crisis management. Leave a comment here or email erik@bernsteincrisismanagement.com and we’ll feature your ideas in a future post!

Remember, your CSR’s are some of your most valuable crisis management assets

Providing great customer service can win you customers for life, and a larger share of those customer’s paychecks, but dropping the ball can, and will, have the opposite effect as well. Properly training customer service agents, giving them the flexibility to problem solve, and ensuring they’re up to date on all policies and practices should be a core component of any crisis prevention plan. If not, you’re asking for pain in the pocketbook, the last thing any organization wants.

Need more convincing? How about this infographic, from the folks over at Groovv:

How Customer Service is Impacting Your Bottom Line and Online Reputation – An infographic by the team at Groovv

Failing to walk its talk is hurting the social network’s reputation

Facebook has come under scrutiny repeatedly due to its cavalier attitude towards user’s right to privacy. Sure it claims to support privacy, but case after case has shown that it’s far from a priority for the social network. That approach is drawing fire once again, this time from lawmakers in the UK, specifically those in Parliament’s Science and Technology committee, which is currently drafting guidelines for websites and apps regarding the transparency of how they gather and use personal data. The Telegraph’s Christopher Hope reports:

Andrew Miller MP, the committee’s chairman, said: “Facebook’s experiment with users’ emotions highlighted serious concerns about the extent to which, ticking the terms and conditions box, can be said to constitute informed consent when it comes to the varied ways data is now being used by many websites and apps.

“Let’s face it, most people click yes to terms and conditions contracts without reading them, because they are often laughably long and written in the kind of legalese you need a law degree from the USA to understand.

“Socially responsible companies wouldn’t want to bamboozle their users, of course, so we are sure most social media developers will be happy to sign up to the new guidelines on clear communication and informed consent that we are asking the Government to draw up.”

Facebook, while currently a dominant force in the social media scene, is making a major crisis management mistake. When it comes to user privacy, it’s saying one thing while doing the complete opposite, and users are catching on. Already more anonymous services are catching on, especially amongst the younger crowd, and we don’t feel it’s too far of a stretch to say this contrast, combined with the fact that privacy is increasingly a hot-button topic among stakeholders, does hold the potential to sink Facebook at some point down the road.

Be careful what you Tweet!

This past Monday, Twitter CFO Anthony Noto showed that even execs at the big blue bird are prone to making mistakes when using the platform. Noto sent a cryptic tweet that was clearly meant to be a private discussion of a business deal, and although it was deleted quickly, media outlets like Valuewalk got ahold of the story almost immediately:

“I still think we should buy them,” Noto tweeted. “He is on your schedule for Dec 15 or 16 — we will need to sell him. I have a plan.”

There was no hint to whom Noto was trying to send the message or which company he wants to buy. The message that was meant to be private, according to Twitter spokesman Jim Prosser, was posted on the micro-blogging platform, but was later deleted, says Bloomberg. Prosser declined to comment on the matter any further.

This tweet could have easily sunk a deal if the other party wasn’t happy about its content, or the fact that it went out at all, and is yet another reminder of the dire need to be careful when it comes to using social media for communication.

How do you handle reputation threats on the increasingly popular site?

As Reddit, the popular website based on user-run communities which determine what content will be prominently displayed and what falls into oblivion, increases in popularity, so does its part in threats to the reputation of organizations around the world.

While coping with negatives on sites like Yelp is well-documented, Reddit is still new to many, so we thought you may find this advice, from a PRDaily article by Whitney Gibson, useful:

Reddit takes the stance that it is not well positioned to arbitrate disputes. It does recommend that a defamed party post the correct information on Reddit to counteract any false information.

“The Reddit community is usually very supportive of such a response and will likely vote to give the correction greater prominence than the original post,” reads Reddit’s FAQ.

In general, this is true and this may be the best solution. Not only does this option have the best chance of lowering the popularity of the original harmful post, but it may also be a good PR tactic. It enables an organization to do damage control and resolve the situation before it gets worse.

If the post is completely false, it does make sense to set the record straight. If it is more of a customer complaint, the best practice often involves demonstrating the appropriate level of sympathy, politely addressing the issue raised, and perhaps asking the poster to call the business to address the complaint. Many businesses respond directly to negative criticism online and on social media to demonstrate they value feedback/criticism and, overall, their customers.

In other words, it’s really not much different than you would do for an issue on any other online platform. Stay honest, stay compassionate, and get out there and resolve the issue where people can see. Left ignored, reputation threats on Reddit can snowball out of control, but handling them properly can actually win you fans in the end.

Knowing how your stakeholders use social media makes your messaging more effective

Social media isn’t limited to one locale, and while the big services tend to span multiple countries, many regions have their own specific services as well. By knowing who uses what social media platforms, and how they’re using them, you can more effectively communicate with your stakeholders.

Take a look at this infographic from Wishpond, and gain some valuable social media knowledge: