Nestle's Social Media Crisis

Greenpeace started a big global crisis situation for Nestle after posting an online video featured an office worker accidently biting into an orangutan finger instead of a Kit Kat. The video aimed to draw attention to the NGO's ongoing battle with Nestle over them using palm oil in their products.

Nestle have been bombarded with angry consumers on Twitter andFacebook with critical comments. Consumers have accused the company of ‘hiding behind PR spin', calling the company's response to the criticism a ‘major social media fail'. (PRWeek) Digital PR experts said the situation was quickly becoming a social media crisis.

Porter Novelli associate director, digital, Kerry Gaffney said: ‘Nestle's status updates are pushing people on to its official site to see its corporate response. Someone within Nestle is also responding to posts, but they are not corporate in tone and are juvenile. The company should be tailoring its response more to the environment with a more human tone.'

One of the things Nestle did wrong was to use a junior position to respond to the comments, but they should have used a more experienced senior position to deal with the online attacks.

Nestley thought they could get YouTube to close down the video and ignore the situation, which made it even worse, it was like throwing gasoline into a fire. The story blow even bigger! One user commented on Vimeo: "Thank you Nestle...I would never have seen this video if you hadn`t had it kicked off YouTube. Now I`m forwarding it all my friends, through Facebook, and guess what they are forwarding it all their mates. Fire your PR team. They are muppets."

Facebook has been hit worse, people was leaving critical comments on Nestle’s fan page, some criticising the company’s social media approach. For example, "social media is about embracing your market, engaging and having a conversation rather than preaching!" Which then resulted in more hostility from Nestle as they started to delete some of the comments.

After deleting, Nestley started to respond with juvenile statements like: "Thanks for the lesson in manners. Consider yourself embraced. But it's our page, we set the rules, it was ever thus."

This situation is a perfect theory example for a phenomenon called the Streisand effect. If Nestle reacted differently to the situation it might not have become a crisis for them. Use PR right: Don’t insult your customers. And in PR 2010, mind your behaviour in social media platforms — especially those particularly created for the fans of your company. Some say It may there is no such thing as bad press, but think twice when it comes to social media. Nestle is a perfect example.

What Nestle could/should have done:

1) When the video came out, respond where the attacks were happening and respond with the same technique.

2) Greenpeace have freedom of speech to spread their version, you spread yours. Never try do delete the content, as people will feel you are taking away their rights of free speech. After all, Nestle have good blogger relationships, they should have used that.

3) Point out that you are trying to make things better, but these things take time. In the meantime all suggestions welcome.

The way Nestle handled things Greenpeace achieved what they wanted with their campaign. Will this result in people stop buying Nestle products? Now on Facebook people are talking about boycotting Nestle products during Easter. The situation has resulted in revenue loss for Nestle; it will take them time to convince their consumers to buy products again.

This whole mess draws attention to what I think is one of the most important aspects of social media, which is the social media crisis plan. Clearly, Nestle had no such plan ready.

NGO Against Public Relations, Really?

Non-governmental organizations (NGO) need healthy relationships with the public to meet their goals. Foundations and charities use sophisticated public relations campaigns to raise funds and employ standard lobbying techniques with governments. A speaker from Friends of the Earth said that their NGO organisation would do anything to separate what they do from anything related to public relations. However, at the end of the day, what all NGOs do is PR!

He said another interesting thing, that NGO is "a brand destroyer". According to this man NGO run campaigns in order to destroy or threaten reputation of big companies. It all comes back to the first statement, how can NGO achieve all that with out techniques used in PR?

A good example of the statement is when Greenpeace ran a campaign against Dove. Greenpeace's forests campaigners were invited to meet with senior executives at Unilever headquarters on Friday 9 May 2008. In just two weeks Unilever had received tens of thousands of protest emails from around the world, because Greenpeace activists brought masses of news media to their buildings in the UK, Netherlands and Italy. Greenpeace achieved that by launching a viral video online called "Dove Onslaught(er)". Public pressure moved Unilever to react.

This was the first success in a broader campaign to secure real change on the ground in South East Asia. The campaign was designed to stop the palm oil industry from destroying the Paradise Forests, and ensuring the protection of the climate and a future for orang-utans. On the Greenpeace website they state: “If others in the palm oil industry are smart, they'll follow Unilever's lead. There's no excuse for wasting time now, so any industry slow-learners could be our next campaign target”.

15^th March 2010, Greenpeace kept their word. They launched a viral video “Kit Kat – give the orang-utan a break”.

Greenpeace state they have new evidence which shows that Nestlé - the makers of Kit Kat - are using palm oil produced in areas where the orang-utans' rainforests once grew. Even worse, the company doesn't seem to care. This has now resulted in Nestlé has struggled to contain a bombardment of criticism from angry consumers on Twitter and its official Facebook page.

On Twitter, the firm has been bombarded with critical comments. Consumers have also turned to Facebook and accused the company of ‘hiding behind PR spin', calling the company's response to the criticism a ‘major social media fail'. (PRWeek)

Digital PR experts said the situation was quickly becoming a social media crisis.

NGO might be fighting for a better cause using PR, but I believe the way they do it is harming the overall PR reputation.

Greenpeace vs Kit Kat

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/forests/kit-kat-give-orang-utan-break-20100317

Greenpeace vs Dove

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/forests/asia-pacific/dove-palmoil-action

PRWeek - Facebook Crises

http://prweek.com/uk/news/search/991636/NestlE-faces-Facebook-crisis-Greenpeace-rainforest-allegations/

Will Social Media Lead the 2010 Election in the UK?

Just as the US elections used social media to communicate with voters, so it is in the UK.

Obama is a ‘role model’ for campaigning online and for his success with online fundraising. According to Business Week, in July alone, Obama’s fundraising doubled that of McCain, generating $51 million. In addition, the Obama campaign has cited that 88% of their donations have come from online resources. This has never happened before. The man knows how to move and engage people; he listens, he reacts, he empowers. The Washington Post has even gone so far as to title Obama as the “King of Social Networking.”

In social media you have to be able to give up some of the power. But how can you when power is what drives an election?

In the past, a campaign team may have overreacted to a video such as Obama Girl or been concerned about not having a say in the messaging behind a video such as Yes We Can. Instead, Obama’s team has embraced these videos and recognised the value and power of user-generated content in moving others to action. However the UK politicians are not fully ready to give up that kind of power. They want to follow Obama’s strategy in their own elections, but on the other hand, do it with much caution. The UK election has gone online, and many are now discussing if it is beneficial for the 2010 election or not.

Even before official campaigning begins, one thing seems clear - this election is going to be fought in cyberspace as well as on the doorsteps (BBC). Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are now seen as crucial battlegrounds, as well as potential forums for political mistakes. The influence of bloggers are enormous, they have the power to very fast spread their view of either supporting or attacking the various parties. These are the reason behind why the UK politicians fear the social media.

The reason social media campaigning was so successful for Obama, was that he was able to reach and influence the younger voters who might well take a steer from their peers rather than traditional media. When it comes to politics, it seems young people are less interested in participating, however with the social media, even when you can’t vote, you are part of the community who can. Which means people can still be heard.

It looks like the UK politicians are sceptical about the social media approach, Mr. Cameron might have made it clear last year that he is no fan of Twitter (BBC), however when they see the results they quickly change their minds. The news comes as David Cameron has said he is considering finally joining Twitter the social networking site (PRWeek), following his infamous ‘too many twits make a twat’ gaffe on Absolute Radio last July.

According to resent statistics conservative party dominates social media platform Facebook as election approaches (PRWeek). The research showed a staggering 4,688 comments and wall posts had been made on the party's fan page. This compared with only 1,229 commented or posted on the Labour Party's page and 727 on the Liberal Democrats. The figures demonstrate a substantial gap between the Conservatives' online engagement tactics on the platform. And still Mr. Cameron is afraid of Twitter; despite the success they have on Facebook. The biggest challenge for the parties will be to turn their Facebook friends into Facebook supporters.

Winning elections is about finding your voters and getting them to vote for you on the day. It is here we will see how effective social media campaign is in the UK.

So what will we see in our first social media affected election?

I predict we will see more MPs surrender to the online campaigns, which will stop them gaining more power. We will see the candidates who use social media getting higher audience, as the online activity creates a buzz around their election. I believe that the 2010 elections will see social media playing a big role for politicians. It will also generate more interest among the younger voters.

Reference:

PRWeek http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/search/979583/Labour-dominates-Twitter-David-Cameron-finally-considers-joining-site/

PRWeek http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/search/991885/Conservative-Party-dominates-social-media-platform-Facebook-election-approaches/

BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8589037.stm

Business Week http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2008/tc20080825_761567.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_technology

The Washington Post http://blog.washingtonpost.com/44/2007/10/06/barack_obama_social_networking.html