We have come to a Facebook dilemma... Negative comments.
Although in coming up with our social media communication strategy, we had anticipated scenarios like this and had come up with alternative ways of dealing with them... But it's still hard to judge what the right decision is - especially when this is our team's first attempt at social media on a corporate level and it's only been a few weeks in.
As PR students, we are always taught that 'no comment' is one of the worst ways of handling a negative situation. I believe this runs true especially in regards to social media where it's of the upmost importance that organisations are seen as being open, transparent and somewhat on the same level as those in their online network/community.
In our situation, there may not have been serious outcomes in regards to what action(s) we took because we currently only have 150 "Likes" on our Facebook page, but for other more established online brands - it could be near death.
Take a look at Honda, when in 2009 were heavily persecuted (on online blogs and other communities) for deleting negativity on one of it's Facebook Pages. The situation turned out to be that a manager had made a positive comment, literally in amongst hundreds of negative comments, without disclosing he was employed by Honda. Did the manager actually do anything wrong if these were his personal opinions? Honda seemed to think so, but from reading related articles about the situation, Honda was far from praised for taking action and deleting the comment. Maybe it should have let it's Facebook Wall turn into a forum of both positive, neutral and negative comments - and in turn be seen as a transparent company open to feedback.
The negative comment on our Facebook, (something relating to a Hospital patient complaining about not being able to access a microwave for public use), was responded to and not deleted. We apologised and advised the patient that a nurse manager would be coming to speak to further speak to them about the issue asap.
The comment was subsequently deleted by the patient soon thereafter, but we believed we handled the situation quite well :)
On a further note, I think you should all check out Skittles' Facebook as I think it's a really good example of a simple but effective social media page. It fits in well with the culture of Skittles and because it doesn't forwardly sell itself, it generates such a good response from the public!
4 comments:
Social media has to be THE issue in the public relations industry today. It's potential to create meaningful positive stakeholder relationships so easily is incredible. However despite being around for a few years now, there remains a lot uncertainty and even apprehension in the industry surrounding social media (especially Facebook) and the best way to utilise it.
There isn't really a strict social media "how-to" guide - businesses basically have to work it out as they go along. And when social media has such a huge reach and influence, this approach can cause issues very quickly.
It's a bit of a coincidence actually that you mentioned Honda's Facebook page. Honda is our naming rights sponsor for the Honda Over The Top Expedition, and prior to reading your blog I was unaware the company had experienced social media controversy in the past. Something for me be wary of!
While I haven't experienced any PR crisis personally, I feel as though you and your team handled the situation very well. We have definitely been taught that the "no comment" stance is a huge PR blunder and the right step is to address the problem and not ignore it.
Also checked out your link of the Skittles FB, it was a good example :)
One of the tasks I did as an intern was to review the hype about social media and what we could offer to companies who approached us.
I quickly found out that many companies seem to either not have a social media crisis strategy or choose not to follow it. For example: how Nestle and DKNY failed to respond well to the problems their facebook pages faced.
I believe we covered the Nestle issue in class but here's a link about the DKNY sitatuion in case anyone is interested: http://mashable.com/2010/11/29/dkny-peta-facebook/
I also found that many companies think that social media is just a platform for pasting more information about the company and selling it to more people. Totally wrong. Your Skittles example is exactly how it should be done.
Like Matt said, social media is the issue in PR today and I think your team did a good job in addressing the issue of the complaint. And as proven by DKNY, no comment is a deadly mistake!
Thanks for giving me something to think about!
Cheers,
Nik
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