The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Social Media

The Good, The Bad and The
Ugly of Social Media
Oon Yeoh
New Media
Day 1 Social Media Technologies
What is Social Media?
Beyond the Blog
The Good
Communication
Engagement
Branding
Crowdsourcing
Disney Video
Watch the Disney Video
Earthquake
Watch the Earthquake video
Hillary Clinton
Watch the Hillary Clinton video
The Bad & Ugly
Definition of Social Media Crisis
• A social media crisis is an issue that arises in
or is amplified by social media, and results in
negative mainstream media coverage, a
change in business process, or financial loss.
– Altimeter Group
Most Companies Are Unprepared For
A Social Media Crisis
• In a new study by the Altimeter Group, more than
half of the 144 companies surveyed say they don't
have a response plan if a real-time technology crisis
strikes.
• The study - which researched 50 mainstream social
media crises since 2001 - found that 76% of crises
could have been averted, either with more
preparation or a better response to the problem.
Industries Affected
Platforms
BP
Slow Response
• An oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico which has resulted in 11
deaths and a massive oil spill was a public relations and social
media disaster for BP Global.
• The incident happened on April 20. Three days later the company
issued a news release with a statement from the CEO, stating that
employees were the first priority and they were cooperating fully
with the Coast Guard to ensure everything possible was being done
for them and their families.
• It wasn’t until May 3 that the CEO finally made a public statement
on MSNBC - indicating that BP was not to blame, and also noting
that they would, of course, be responsible for the clean-up.
BP Press Conference
Watch the BP Press
Conference
YouTube
• The official YouTube channel for BP America on its Gulf of
Mexico response to the oil spill was launched on May 18.
The branded channel on YouTube cost BP about
US$250,000 to create.
• Ratings: Comments were disabled, but YouTube users were
still able to rate the videos – all of which have dismal
ratings with one star as well as “dislike” ratings that vastly
overwhelm the “like” ratings.
• Response Videos: The recommended or related videos that
appear on the right menu next to BP’s videos are
overwhelmingly dominated by negative content about BP.
BP coffee Spill
Watch the BP coffee Spill
Video
Louis Vuitton
LV Darfur
LV Brand-jacking
• A 26-year old artist named Nadia Plesner has
been sued by Louis Vuitton for brand-jacking
their famous purses in an anti-genocide
campaign.
• The artist was trying to make a point that the
media cares more for Paris Hilton
extravaganza’s more than the genocide in the
nation of Darfur.
LV Brand-jacking
• LV: “Cease and Desist”
Luxury has a brand police within its Marketing division to ensure their
products aren’t being misplaced or improperly positioned, and it took
action by first sending a cease and desist letter.
Nadia: “Free Speech”
Nadia sent a return note, stating this was her ability to self-express and
claimed the logo was not referring to LV in particular.
• LV files lawsuit
LV has now filled suit against Nadia, claiming damages of over US$20,000
a day, each day the campaign is continued.
• The social media backlash
Since then the Darfur has grown in awareness, having a Facebook group
formed, spread in the news, and hundreds of blogs pointing to her site.
Exxon Mobile
• In 2008, the Twittersphere was curious, and
excited to see a member of Exxon Mobil’s
employee ranks join the Twitter conversation …
but she’s not a real employee!
• “Janet” posed as an Exxon employee, answering
questions about the direction of the company,
where philanthropy resources are being spent,
and even responding about the Exxon Valdez.
Wholefoods
• In January 2005, someone using the name "Rahodeb" went online to a
Yahoo stock-market forum and posted this opinion: No company would
want to buy Wild Oats Markets Inc, a natural-foods grocer, at its price then
of about $8 a share.
• Turns out, Rahodeb was an online pseudonym of John Mackey, co-founder
and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc (It's an anagram of Deborah,
Mackey's wife's name).
• Investigations showed that Mackey had spent a ton of time on Yahoo
message boards bashing the value of Wild Oats stock -- just before bidding
to take over Wild Oats, according to the US Federal Trade Commission.
• Rahodeb even defended Mackey's haircut when another user poked fun at
a photo in the annual report. "I like Mackey's haircut," Rahodeb said. "I
think he looks cute!"
MOL
• OffGamers is a company that does micro-transactions
for game currency, and has a Facebook Page. In it, the
company advertises its products.
• MOL CEO Ganesh Kumar Bangah left a trolling remark
as the first comment on the OffGamers ad.
• He went so far as to insinuate that those who would
buy from OffGamers are less intelligent than those who
would patronize MOL.
MOL
• The overwhelming majority of comments were in
support of OffGamers, with many people
claiming distaste for MOL over Bangah’s
comments.
• What’s quite interesting about the whole thread
is that time and again Bangah talks of MOL’s
embrace of social media. However, it’s quite
obvious that the MOL CEO doesn’t quite grasp
the concept of what his words can do.
YTL YES
• On day of launch, the YTL YES website suffered a Denial of
Service attack. YES initially did not offer any customer care
hotline numbers for customers to call in. On their materials
and device manuals, the only channel for support is via
their website or e-mail.
• “So far we have sent an email asking them for help with the
yes ID but we haven’t heard from them after more than 10
hours. If they are not occupied answering phone calls –
which obviously they are not, why can’t they respond more
promptly? To make matters worse, there’s no auto
responder to confirm if your complaint has been received.”
– Soya Cincau
Website Down
Yes website. The website was down for close to 30 hours after launch
Screen capture by blogger
Soya Cincau
ID Not Working
Early adopters couldn’t seem to authenticate
their YES despite keying in exactly what was
registered and confirmed via e-mail.
“Even if you tried to request for a new
password, the 4G Network Manager links you
back to their website which is obviously down
at the moment.
Considering yes is pushing for everything to be
on the cloud, reliability of keeping things
online including their website should be their
number 1 priority.”
Screen capture & report by
blogger Soya Cincau
Screen capture by
blogger Larry Lim
Screen capture by
blogger Larry Lim
Adwords Debacle
Screen capture by blogger
Soya Cincau