Since the introduction of social media, resolving disputes through face to face interaction seems to have become a thing of the past. There appears to be a popular trend in taking to various social platforms to vent frustration towards the situations or people we encounter in everyday life.  From that annoying person sitting next to us on the train, to our food taking forever to arrive in a busy restaurant – the world of social is where we turn to whine and complain. Is it therefore possible to presume that social media has given people a sense of empowerment, allowing them to express opinions that they would normally keep to themselves to avoid confrontation?

This also appears to be the case when complaining about brands, as recently seen when a New York City street photographer took to Facebook to shame the popular fashion label DKNY for displaying his pictures without permission. Like most people today, he chose to take his fight public rather than attempt to resolve the issue privately with the brand. This forced DKNY to publically apologise for the mistake via Tumblr and donate $25,000 to a local YMCA in the photographer’s name. Logging onto Facebook and publically shaming this big brand without approaching them privately clearly paid off. Not only was the brand forced to apologise but they were pressured into making a sizeable donation to avoid receiving a bad reputation.

In the days before social media the manner in which people complained was entirely different. Written feedback appears to be a lot more impulsive and less thought out, as the things we are easily able to say online are a lot harder to say offline. Is it therefore a cowardly approach to make comments via social that we would never dare make in a face to face dispute? Or has social media given us a voice to express opinions that we would otherwise be forced to keep to ourselves?

Image courtesy of Juan Iraola, social-media-bandwagon, Flickr under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License

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Sick, twisted, immoral – just some of the words to describe people who post derogatory and sometimes disgusting comments about sensitive topics online.

The rise of social media has given these people, or “trolls” as they are known, a platform to write hateful comments towards celebrities, families who have suffered bereavements or anyone they choose, all from behind a keyboard.

Over the last few years, there has been a number of instances of “trolls” sending death threats on Twitter to numerous celebrities, or sending hurtful messages in a bit to provoke a reaction. One man took action though this week, and has been heralded online for his actions.

Curtis Woodhouse, the boxer and former light-welterweight champion, received months of abuse from one Twitter user, and decided to take action into his own hands.

The Guardian reports:

“The boxer was so enraged with the tweets from Jimmyob88 that he offered his followers a £1,000 reward if they could help him locate the culprit. Woodhouse’s growing number of Twitter followers chipped in and managed to track down his troll.

Woodhouse set off to find his troll, tweeting a photograph of the street on which Jimmyob88 lived. “Right Jimbob, I’m here,” he wrote, adding: “Someone tell me what number he lives at or do I have to knock on every door #itsshowtime.”

Realising the error of his ways, Jimmyob88 replied: “I am sorry it’s getting a bit out of hand. I am in the wrong. I accept that.” A triumphant Woodhouse went home, joking that he could have saved himself some petrol money by blocking his cowardly abuser.
 

Whilst we don’t condone violence towards so-called “trolls” on Twitter, by standing up and taking action this one troll has learned the error of his ways.

For brands using social media, this isn’t really an option. Customer service on Facebook and Twitter is commonplace now, with companies using social media as a platform to deal with customers and solve complaints. But what do you do with those hardcore customers who hate your company no matter what you do or say?

The answer: get creative. For those people on social media that have a problem with your company for no apparent reason, this is the way to go. Last year, Bodyform received a complaint from Richard Neill, who complained that they had lied in their adverts. Bodyform got creative with their response and produced the video below, not only rendering the complaint null and void but earning admiration and respect from people across the world.

Unfortunately “trolls” are not going to go away any time soon. Until the law steps in and cracks down on this behaviour, the only answer is to do one thing: get creative and outsmart the naysayers to succeed.

Picture courtesy of JeepersMedia photostream, Treasure Troll, Flickr under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

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In Part One of this series we saw that every social media incident does not make a crisis; whilst in Part Two we explored how a true crisis causes trust, reputational and financial issues. However, can a social media incident actually lead to positive results?

The most recent social media “crisis” centred around the recent hackings of Burger King and Jeep’s Twitter accounts. On February 18^th Burger King saw its Twitter page taken over, the avatar and name changed to “McDonalds”, and a flurry of questionable Tweets sent.

A day later Jeep suffered a similar incident – this time the hackers claimed the brand had been sold to Cadillac and, in one tweet, that Jeep’s CEO smoked drugs.

But did the brands actually suffer any damage over the hackings?

The tweets sent could have been seen as offensive; but there seemed to be no doubt in anyone’s eyes that they were the hackers doing and completely out of the brands control. In fact, many of the brands key supporters informed the companies about the Twitter hackings on their official Facebook pages.

This suggests their customers are engaged with the brands online social media profiles and invested sufficiently in the companies’ message to inform them of issues.

Rather than overact the situation the companies acted as swiftly as possible to contain to the situation. Particularly Jeep reacted with humour – sending the following tweet:

.@burgerking Thanks BK. Let us know if you want to grab a burger and swap stories – we’ll drive.

— Jeep (@Jeep) February 20, 2013

The brands may have come out of the incident unscathed but did they actually benefit from the hackings?

Both brands saw a huge increase in Twitter followers: Burger King was followed by over 5,000 new people in the first 30 minutes and by nearly 30,000 overall as a direct consequence of the hacking. Whether or not these followers are valuable for the brands, or whether they will stick around now the hackings are over, could be questioned. However, the fact that MTV, and sister network BET, orchestrated a fake hacking of their Twitter accounts in an attempt to garner new followers suggests that at least some brands believe these follower increases are valuable. In fact, a study by Social Media Today has suggested that to have generated the press and attention that Burger King received as a result of the hack it would have required nearly a $1,000,000 campaign investment.

Interesting day here at BURGER KING®, but we’re back! Welcome to our new followers. Hope you all stick around!

— BurgerKing (@BurgerKing) February 19, 2013

As we draw to a close, it’s time to take a step back and have a quick look at what we’ve learnt:

• The hallmarks of a crisis are lasting financial, reputational and trust issues for the company
•  Crises are often fuelled by real life events to which social amplifies the situation, making it far harder for the brand to control or limit the damage
• Not every social media incident creates a crisis
• Those who work in social media should step back and make sure they view events in perspective: incidents can be inconsequential or, as we have seen, even beneficial to a brand

Ultimately, to understand the anatomy of a crisis you have to understand your industry and how an incident can unfold within it.

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In part one of this series we discussed that issues shouldn’t be viewed purely through a social lens. Just because a company is affected by an incident doesn’t necessarily mean it becomes embroiled in a crisis. However, that does not mean crises don’t exist. And when a true crisis occurs it can mean lasting financial, reputational and trust issues for the company.

Take Tesco, for example. When the horsemeat scandal broke, Tesco was one of the first in the firing line and the online backlash was immediately apparent.

Clearly the issue was a crisis, with or without social media. However with over 160,000 posts specifically mentioning Tesco in relation to horsemeat on the 16^th January, social media amplified the situation (like a negative viral meme). Tesco, from the moment the scandal broke to the present, has been by far the most mentioned retailer online in relation to horsemeat:

It could almost be suggested that Tesco had become synonymous with the horsemeat issue: and that has fuelled a continued crisis for Tesco.

Past the initial backlash you can see a continued high level of online chatter (particularly Twitter) linking Tesco to horsemeat.

If you look more carefully, by removing the high volume of Twitter traffic, you can often see this chatter is driven by mainstream news.

The supermarket has continued to be linked to horsemeat online and in the press. Continued mainstream news coverage around the horsemeat scandal (even when it does not specifically focus upon Tesco) drives, and amplifies, social media chatter, linking the crisis continuously back to Tesco.

But, is Tesco really suffering from a loss of trust and reputational and financial damage?

Or is it just horse jokes?

Already Tesco has supposedly had £300m knocked-off its market value since the scandal broke. The long-term financial damage is harder to tell. However, a loss of trust and reputation seem likely. The length of continued online comment around the scandal points to potential reputational damage. The link between horsemeat and Tesco has been kept at the forefront of people’s minds for an extended period making of time: making the entire episode hard to forget for any potential customer!

Trust is probably the hardest to measure. By the 17^th January Tesco CEO, Philip Clarke, admitted that the retailer had “lost trust” due to the horsemeat scandal. Twitter points to a high numbers of horse puns, but comments can also easily be found suggesting customers are avoiding the supermarket because of the crisis.

I have lost my trust in #tesco, #asda the only supermarket I trust is #sainsburys they tested negative for #horse meat what a disgrace

— nicola (@cpk37) February 22, 2013

A crisis is often fuelled by real world events. However, the power of social media cannot be ignored. News is amplified by the online chatter, reaching more and more people, making it far harder for the brand to control and limit the damage of the situation.

Look out for Part three: Can brands actually benefit from a so-called “crisis”?

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Listening to the recent Webinar: How to effectively manage a social media crisis it struck me how readily the term “crisis” is applied to just about anything that can negatively impact a brand on social media. From Twitter hackings to disgruntled employees hijacking a company Twitter, everything is labelled a crisis. However, a real social media crisis will do more than cause a flurry of tweets. It will impact not only a company’s reputation, but customer trust in a brand and, ultimately, have a significant financial impact.

Is it easy for those involved in social media to think events are a crisis? This three part series will look at social media “crises” and what really constitutes reputational and financial damage.

The recent HMV Twitter embarrassing incident caused a flurry of commentary, including our own! But was it really a crisis? Did it significantly damage the brand? Or impact a business already in administration?

If we take a look at a simple timeline of social media mentions around HMV over the course of January and February 2013 a clear spike in activity can be seen. However, if you look closer this isn’t surrounding the social media incident at all, but instead the administration announcement and confusion over gift vouchers.

The number of mentions surrounding this purely on line social media crisis (#hmvxfactorfiring) barely form a blip compared the chatter surrounding the “real life” news of HMV calling in the administrators. Key words showed heavier mentions of topics relating to HMV falling into administration and original decision not to accept gift vouchers compared to key words around the social media crisis.

This isn’t to say that the social media incident was not important. But was it a crisis? Probably not: an issue the company may have handled differently, but not a full blown crisis.

Why was this not a crisis? Well, for starters, it had no lasting impact – people stopped talking about Poppy Powers (the perpetrator of the live firing tweets on the HMV account) and her #hmvxfactorfiring in less than a day. Certainly it didn’t cause any lasting financial, reputational or trust issues for the company: the cornerstones of a true crisis. In fact, in this instance, it was completely overshadowed by “real life” events, namely HMV going into administration, and completely ignored by mainstream news. In fact, the entire storm barely spread outside of Twitter!

Perhaps we have to be careful not to view every incident entirely through a social lens. An incident doesn’t necessarily make a crisis and shouldn’t be blown out of proportion.

Look out for part two: When a social media crisis really does impact reputation.

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From Findus lasagnes, Tesco burgers and Asda bolognese to Whitbread, it seems that the horsemeat scandal gets worse every day, as the saga gets even darker and more twisted and new brands become embroiled in the scandal.

The questions of exactly what are we eating continue to persist and it’s enough to turn anyone vegetarian (almost). But as many brands and supermarkets tremble at the prospect of being caught up in “Horse-gate”, there is one skill which is more important than ever at times like this: crisis management.

62% of customers are now using social media for customer service issues and nearly a third use branded social pages on Facebook to ask product questions. Whilst customer service on social media is one thing, and widely used by brands, crisis management is a whole different kettle of fish (or should that be horse?!)

With our 24/7 news cycle and the rise of social media, it is easy to separate brands who have undertaken crisis management training and those who have not. There is nowhere for brands to hide in a crisis, and you need to be proactive and demonstrate the ability to do what is necessary or your reputation runs the risk of being left in tatters.

And that is where Findus unfortunately fell short. Since “Horse-gate” broke, the frozen food manufacturer has shown itself to be massively under-prepared for such as crisis. Findus’ homepage claimed that it uses “only the best ingredients” with a picture of a “beef” lasagne – evidently not. It stayed like that for days (it has since been replaced by a brand message to the crisis), but it doesn’t do much for Findus’ reputation.

Social media was awash with Findus and horse jokes when the story broke, but the lack of presence on social media for the brand doesn’t do it any favours. A Twitter account (@CrispyPancakes1), which has not been updated for over two years, combined with a non-existent Facebook page, has resulted in customers having a lot of anger but nowhere to channel it or receive a response.

More horse meat crisis fun:twitpic.com/c4rlov #Findus

— Oz Freire (@OzFreire) February 18, 2013

This has resulted in a 50 year heritage left in tatters as there was no effective crisis management plan put in place. Findus may have had global sales of $1.5 billion in 2011, but is hard to see how they will be able to shake off the horsemeat scandal easily.

In contrast, Tesco and Waitrose have acted quickly and professionally in the wake of “Horse-gate”, with each supermarket issuing an immediate product recall, providing a spokesperson for the media and communicating their position effectively to customers before being barraged by the views of others.

Waitrose’s open letter from Managing Director Mark Price did well to quell the speculation and put customers at ease, acting before the crisis had a chance to snowball.

What “Horse-gate” has shown us that, apart from checking what you are eating, is that brands need to be prepared for any crisis that could rear its ugly head. Act now, or else your brands’ reputation will lie in tatters and your customers could gallop away…

Picture courtesy of Pixabay, Cartoon boarder horse, Pixabay.com under a Creative Commons 1.0 universal license

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Yesterday saw an excellent example of when a brand’s social media goes very, very wrong. An HMV employee, who had access to the company Twitter account, began to Tweet about the mass sackings that were going on that day in wake of HMVs bankruptcy:

HMV clearly had not thought through potential implications of firing team members who had access to the company Twitter account nor the procedures in place to deal with the crisis as it arose. HMV hurried to delete the offending tweets, but not before an ex-employee shared that they overheard the Marketing Director asking ‘How do I shut down Twitter?’ Perhaps this mishap proves that HMV didn’t understand the important and influence a social presence can have.

An important lesson from this is the speed at which these tweets went viral. Despite how quickly HMV removed the offending articles they had still been screen grabbed by hundreds of people on Twitter who watched the meltdown in progress. These screen-grabs, along with the hashtag #hmvxfactorfiring, meant that within hours the hashtag was trending and millions of people could see what was happening to the employees at HMV.

HMV did try some damage control by sending out these messages:

Unfortunately, the damage had already been done and it was a case of too little, too late. These events once again highlight the importance of social media for brands and how instrumental it can be in bad PR. It is vital that training and protocol for dealing with a crisis is in place, as well as for all staff, regardless of seniority, to have a good understanding of social media. Not every embarrassing social media crisis can be avoided but the damage to the brand can be minimized.

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There is very little doubt that social media is increasingly becoming more prominent in our lives. Whether it’s following a brand or communicating with friends and family, our lives are progressively being displayed on screen more. However with so much of our personal content being shared on-line it is becoming increasingly apparent there is a need to be watchful about what you post.

In light of the last week a new app called ‘FaceWash’ was launched. The app finds and helps to locate and remove anything profane from your Facebook profile by scanning photos, posts, likes and links posted etc. for offensive content. The app flags a whole host of words but also contains a search bar for specific searches. Thus cleaning up your social media manners and giving your profile a ‘fresh face’.

As this infographic points out, when we post information about ourselves online we need to be considerate as to how people may perceive it.

With 70% of job recruiters having rejected a candidate because of something they saw online, it is clear that when it comes to sharing our lives across social media there is a need to be more careful in what we post as it can harm us in the future; and whilst your social life may not resemble a night out with Charlie Sheen, potential employers may be put off by the slightest indication of misbehaviour if displayed online.

Infographic courtesy of OnlineClasses.org

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In the past, for many organisations, the struggle to successfully incorporate social media was due to a lack of understanding and often a  downright fear from higher management. A report by Weber and Shandwick in 2010 highlighted this by revealing that 64% of CEOs from the largest companies did not use social media. However, fast forward to the 2012 study on the sociability of CEOs and we see a different picture.

Many CEOs from the top 50 largest companies are now actively engaging with a social community, with 66% of them are now deemed to be ‘social’. Geographically there is a difference, with 80% of CEOs in the US categorised as social compared to 67% of European CEOs. What is clear, however, is that there has been a shift in how active company leaders are becoming in the social sphere.

Why does it matter if the company CEO is Tweeting or appearing in company YouTube videos? It matters because 49% of corporate reputation is attributable to the CEO and their online presence becomes a reflection of the company they head. Research conducted by Brandfog found that as much as 82% of respondents felt they were more likely to trust a brand whose company team and CEO were using social media and even more staggeringly, 77% said that they would be more likely to buy from a company if the CEO was involved in social. That statistic is not to be sniffed at.

Yet CEOs must remember that simply having a social space isn’t enough – an empty shell of a page isn’t going to reflect well on the company. Engagement is key. Nobody wants to be bombarded with the CEOs every thought but some well thought out Tweets can go a long way. The company’s social media policy is also important. If the CEO isn’t following the rules, it doesn’t set a great example to the rest of their team.

In 2013 a brand without some kind of social media is almost unheard of. Combined with the public expecting to find a company’s social presence you can’t afford not to have the CEO participating in social.

Infographic courtesy of Weber Shandwick http://www.webershandwick.com/Default.aspx/Insights/ThoughtLeadership/ThoughtLeadership/2013/SocializingYourCEO2013

Picture courtesy of AxRh, Social Media Icons, http://bit.ly/SuQyDg, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0

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Launching into the realm of social customer service may seem like a daunting prospect, however, failing to take the leap may actually lead to even more frightening consequences.

A shocking statistic from a recent consumer survey commissioned by Conversocial, revealed that: “If confronted with unanswered customer complaints on a company’s social media site, 88.3% of respondents said they’d be either somewhat less likely or far less likely to buy from that brand”.

That same study found that: “78% of respondents believe that social media platforms would either soon entirely replace other means of customer service altogether or become the dominant way for consumers to communicate with corporations”.

Still not convinced that you need to consider your social service offering? Bain & Company may persuade you. They discovered that companies, who engage with their customers through social media, score an average 33 points higher NPS score than those who don’t.

So, now is the time to act. Particularly as the social customer service revolution is more or less still in its infancy. Sooner rather than later, all customers, not just the early adopters and digitally savvy, will begin to reject the original customer service channels and, in turn, the volume of social customer service queries will grow exponentially.

Customers will expect to be able to communicate with brands, both big and small, through social mediums and so the assimilation of social customer service into your existing multichannel offering becomes paramount. Take control of your customers’ social experience to improve brand sentiment tenfold.

A word of warning: ensure that your social customer service adoption is paced. Do not just dive in at the deep end without considering the technology, process and resourcing implications.

If you don’t want to pay the price for poor social customer service, we can offer you expert guidance and training, so give us a call. 

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