Social Media Crisis Management: Three Case Studies

Social Media Crisis Management

Presented By Adonai Training LLP

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Copyright © 2010 Adonai Training LLP. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Content Page
Introduction 3-4
British Petroleum 5 - 10
Ford Motor 11 - 18
Nestle 19 - 27
Final Words 28 - 29
About The Author 30
About Adonai Training LLP 31
Contact Us 32

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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 three-
quarters 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 media’s ability
to aggravate a crisis and the need to harness it when
managing crises.

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Introduction
In this ebook, we will explore the dos-and-don’ts 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 company’s 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
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The Largest Marine Oil Spill in History

BRITISH PETROLEUM

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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 BP’s 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
BP’s 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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What BP has done…
During the crisis, BP constantly update their social media tools to provide the latest information
without any form of engagement. However, BP’s voice in social media is drown in the voices of
dissenters. Below are the social media tools BP adopts and their fan-base numbers. For Facebook
and Twitter, statistics of fan-base belonging to dissenters are also presented.

Twitter
BP Official Account
18,596 Followers

BPGlobalPR
190,561 Followers

Facebook
BP Official Page
41,069 Fans

Youtube Boycott BP Page
6,472 Subscribers 846,608 Fans
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Social Media
Crisis Management Analysis

What BP has done right
• Updating its social media platforms
Updates were provided on a regular basis on the status of oil spill and clean up.

What BP has not done right
• Did not build up a strong base
BP’s social media fan-base is strong but it’s dwarfed by the size of fan-bases belonging to its dissenters.
Hence, even with constant updates, these updates could not create an impact on the sentiments people
have on BP. The lack of strong base also means that people are not enticed to back BP up or show BP
support.
• Failure to engage with fans
In their social media platforms, there was no engagement of any kind. Comments are not replies, mentions
on Twitter are not done. Such absence makes it hard for BP to build any rapport with fans.
• Did nothing to cease or respond to negative comments
Instead of replying to negative comments on what BP is doing to rectify the problem, BP tried to get Twitter
to shut down dissenter’s accounts.

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Social Media Learning Point:
Build relationships before crisis strikes
Social media helps build up a relationship between the two companies and customers. As a
form of buffering your brand’s reputation before a crisis strikes, start forming relationships
using it. After all, it is easier to forgive a friend than a stranger when a mistake is made.
Having a relationship also means that the company be transparent and honest to their
consumers.

However, from insensitive remarks, the lack of engagement on the social media platforms and
BP attempt to control information about the oil spill, BP has portrayed itself to be not
interested in building relationships. Not surprising, data in sentiments tracking shows an
upward spike in negative
Sentiments when the crisis
happened.

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Assemble a Social Media Team

Social media is also here to provide a two-way
communication between a company and customers.
In a crisis a scale like this where lives are lost and
livelihoods are severely damaged, empathy and
accountability is expected but unfortunately not
offered by BP.

Assembling a team to man your social media platform
is a very important factor in crisis management.
Having a team can help with the speed of replying to
comments and aid the provision of information.
Updating your social media platforms can be
automated, but engagement with people on these
platforms can’t be automated. At a crisis this grave,
you ay want to rotating shifts among your staff to
ensure availability of information throughout the day.

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The Ranger Station Saga

FORD MOTOR COMPANY

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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 Ford’s 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 doesn’t 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, Jim’s 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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What Ford has done…
This crisis was managed largely by Scott Monty, the Global Digital and Multimedia Communications
Manager of Ford Motor, using Twitter as the main social media tool of communication. Below, on the
left are the selected Tweets from Monty’s account in United States Eastern Daylight Time and on the
right are some comments on what his tweet was about.

Time Tweet Explanation
1:30am @ScottMonty This is about as bad as PR gets Scott Monty, the Global Digital and Multimedia
for Ford right now! Very bad move that’s Communications Manager, received a heads-up tweet
going to cause loss of sales. just hours after Oaks story started blazing on the
internet.
7: 29am @Jtegner Thanks for letting me know. I’m He checked his account, acknowledged the previous
looking into that this morning. tweet, and subsequently started to investigate and rectify
the problem.

8:32am Ford makes the front page of USA Today: Monty announced that Ford has been featured in the
Ford benefits from CEO's turn to road less media after its efforts for the “Big Three Bailout Plan”.
travelled
11: @ContractorTalk I’m in discussion with our Constant replies were also made directed to people who
23am Chief Trademark Counsel about it right now. asked them. He also made use of hash tag to aid in
I’m none too pleased. #ford information search regarding the incident.
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11: For anyone asking about the Ford fan site and Monty also provided a call-to-action to his followers to
31am legal action: I’m in active discussions with our help spread his side of the story. A total of 19 of his 5,
legal dept. about resolving it. Pls retweet.. 600 followers retweeted this message, broadcasting it to
a total of 13,400 people.

12:17 @Mdurwin @Voltageblog I'm finding it's a Monty constantly provided updates on the status of his
pm much different story from our legal investigation, sometimes direct to the people who asked
department... them.

12:29 @Petertdavis It means we didn't get the full
pm story from the site owners. There's a deeper
issue in question. #ford
1: 07pm Re the Ford fan site: I’m finding that there
was counterfeit material being sold on it.
Trying to get clarity on the URL issue. #Ford

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4:03 p.m. @Psadler And the Model T only got 12 The crisis did not dampen his ability to perform his daily
horsepower with a maximum speed of functions of answering queries.
20 mph.

4: 34pm @BrettTrout Please correct that. We’ve Monty is also on the constant lookout for people who are
since remedied it. unaware of his progress to tell them about it.

4:55 p.m. @KrisColvin We're not shutting the site He also answers to questions clarifying Ford’s actions for
down; we're asking that they stop selling people who have missed his constant updated on the
counterfeit material. #ford investigations.

4: 56pm Here is Ford’s official response to the fan His final tweet on the debacle while asking followers to
site cease & desist debacle. #Ford Please retweet the message. 25 of his followers responded to this
retweet 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

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Social Media
What Ford has done right
• Alert was heard early
Checking his social media tools early provides crucial time for containment of the crisis.
• Make use of existing technologies available in social media tools
Monty made use of Twitter’s hash tags to help organize information.
• Constant updates
It prevents any speculations that may worsen the crisis.
• Replies to questions using mentions
This ensures that people gets the answers they wanted.
• Going to Ford’s detractors
Clarifications on their wrong information prevents them from joining the witch hunt, which can grow in large
numbers quickly.
• Make use of existing networks
Using Retweets, Ford’s messages were able to reach a wider scope of people.
• Able to perform daily functions
The company did not come to a standstill while handling the crisis. Hence preventing more complains about
efficiency pouring in.

What Ford has not done right
• Bringing attention to Ford’s media coverage
Such move only bring more attention to their crisis.
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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 Ford’s 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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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 Ford’s 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 Domino’s 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 Greenpeace’s report on how Nestle’s source of palm oil is damaging
rainforests in Indonesia. To show their displeasure, outraged advocates decided to adopt altered
Nestle’s logos as their profile pictures in Facebook. The crisis was, however, made worst and
popular by Nestle’s 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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What Nestle has done…
In reaction to Greenpeace’s report, Nestle posted a series of status updates on its Facebook page.
On the left below shows their daily updates on the crisis while on the right details the number of
reactions, in terms of ‘likes’ and comments. The content of these comments include Nestle’s
supporters stating their support to the company and reprimanding detractors for their comments
on the issue. One will realize that this crisis is still of a manageable size during this period of time.

March 17
33 likes, 30 comments

March 18

March 19

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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 Nestle’s public
relations team instead of their issues with
Greenpeace. The comments in this post date from
March to July.
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While managing the crisis Nestle created for itself on their Facebook page, daily updates were
still sent with regards to the status of their palm oil efforts. They have also set up an Q&A site for
people to search for answers. These updates were likely to be efforts to manage the crisis that
they have created on their Facebook page as the frequency of their updates on this debacle was
increased for that day.

March 19

March 19

March 19
24 likes,128 comments

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The crisis finally ended with a letter by Nestle. This post attracted many comments praising
Nestle for their decision to support sustainable palm oil with some accusing Nestle for pretending
to be concerned.

14 April

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Social Media
What Nestle has done right
• Constant updates
Daily updates were made to provide accountability to the company’s actions.
•Diverting attention from the Facebook crisis
Nestle tried to divert people’s attention back to the palm oil issue, which was their primary crisis, by posting
more updates than usual, after their post with rude replies went out of hand.
•Provided a site for people to look for answers
A Q&A site was made as a one-stop shop to answer any queries consumers may have. This move may be made
to direct traffic out of their Facebook page, to prevent more participation in their offending post.
•Learn from their mistake immediately
Nestle stopped replying rudely to comments; in fact, they have stopped replying to much comments.

What Nestle has not done right
• Being rude and insulting people
Whether online or offline, minding one’s manners is basic customer service.
• Censorship
Censorship is permissible as certain offensive comments should be deleted. However, when censorship
equates to stiffening negative comments about a company, that crosses the line and creates a backlash on
the company.
• Creating a crisis on top of their current one
When a crisis is happening, it is always advisable to tread lightly in order not to aggravate the situation.
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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 Nestle’s case, the promptness in replying to comments is applaudable. However, social media
is about providing a voice to those who previous don’t 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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Establish a Social Media Policy

Having a proper social media policy will provide good guidance to your employees as it
provides protocol on responding to comments on your social media platforms. This,
however, is not in contradictory to the previous learning point. Authenticity should be
presented professionally when you are engaging your fans. This means that while
showing empathy, you do not use unprofessional terms like ‘sweetie’, or ‘homie’;
instead, you address people by their name.

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 can’t,
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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Last few learning points…
I hope you have a better understanding on social media’s impact on crisis management and a few tips of
how-to when managing your crisis with social media. Here are some tips on what not to do, just to give
you more ideas on how to handle your crisis online.

• Be silent when answers are needed
People lobbying a crisis usually wants action or answers, to keep quiet is almost suicidal. What’s
more, 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 is liken to adding oil to fire.

• Start a blaming game
There’s probably a good reason if all facts point at you. As the good old saying goes, honesty is the
best policy in crisis management so do not start a blaming game. If the public is mistaken about
your company, clarify yourself.

• Disallowing dissenters to voice their concerns
People dislike a cover-up in crises, even if it means to cover up dissentions. Allow people to voice
their opinions on your social media platforms even if they do not support you. Then seek to engage
them by sharing your side of the story, or what you are working on to improve the situation.

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Critical Steps You Must Take
As we come to the end of this ebook, the following are some steps that you must take
for effective social media crisis management.
• Develop a social media crisis management strategy
• Assemble a specialized team for effective social media crisis management
• Create a system of governance on using social media and a social media policy
• Ensure that your staff are trained in social media

How Adonai Training can help you
Adonai Training conducts several social media training courses to equip SME business
with the vital skills for effective social media crisis management. Please check our
website for our range of courses that will be suitable for you and your company.

As a compliment to our readers from Social Media World Forum, simple quote the
promotional code: ATSMWF2010 to enjoy a 20% discount for all courses. This discount
has no expiry date.

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About the Author

A psychology enthusiastic and social media practitioner, Elisha Tan devotes her
time to study the applications of social media and its impact on the social,
economy and business arenas, as well as understanding how people behave
online. As the Social Media Consultant at Adonai Training, Elisha has been
engaging social media as a marketing strategy to clients. Her skills are verifiable;
barely two months into the job, she managed to clinch a consultancy project
with a major governmental agency. As a hobby, Elisha maintains a blog where
she pens down her thoughts and experiences on entrepreneurship and social
media.

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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About Adonai Training LLP
Adonai Training is incorporated in 2010 by our parent company, Ambassage Holdings LLP with
specific goals and targets in mind. The vision of Adonai Training is to build people through
education and training, bringing and making knowledge available to all corners of the world. We
believe that people is dynamic with great potentials yet to be discovered and developed. Our aim
is to help our customers to discover their innate potential and develop them to their maximum
potential. To do this, we ensure that the team, our principal trainers and our courses adhered to
stringent international standards in order to be competitive and to bring values to our customers.

Through our programs, we hope to help people discover their goals and fulfil their dreams as
they seek to enhance their career prospects or business growth. It is our mission to help you, our
customer, to grow and flourish, build a success story of your own. Adonai has gone an extra mile
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business, or to work on consultancy projects.

In Adonai, we aim to make every journey with us a memorable process you will not forget as you
walk alongside with us. Your success story is our success story.

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Contact us

Adonai Training LLP
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#09-732
Singapore 460028

Office: (65) 6300-7759
Fax: (65) 6234-0243
Email: contactus@adonaitraining.com

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