dna13

Social media skirmishes in '09 offer PR lessons

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(Originally published today in The Daily Dog)

Online skirmishes between activists and brands are a daily occurrence.  Consumer products companies, in particular, are juicy targets for disgruntled customers, gadflies and pranksters, many of whom are busily accumulating sizable lists of followers and friends on social networks.  Lessons learned in 2008 guided many brands toward active surveillance of social media, yet few could have predicted the lightning-fast speed and audience size of the top social media brand attacks of 2009.

Based on a Twitter straw poll of social media observers, and corroborating data from Google search and YouTube, the big nine of ‘09 were:

• #1 United Breaks Guitars - Virtually no one had heard of the Dave Carroll's Canadian country music band Sons of Maxwell until the musicians were angered by United Airlines. The carrier's baggage handlers damaged a $3,500 guitar that the band had checked onto a flight, and United gave Carroll the runaround when he tried to get compensation. The episode inspired a song and music video that includes the lyrics, "I should have flown with someone else, or gone by car, because United breaks guitars." With more than 16.9 million Google search references and 5 million views of the video on YouTube, the impact to United Airlines was massive. Despite the carrier's inability to appease Carroll before his digital anger spread in July, I loved spokeswoman Robin Urbanski's quip: "This has struck a chord with us." She was classy while under fire.

• #2 Domino's Pizza employee prank - A series of videos posted to YouTube in April depicted two workers doing disgusting things in the food preparation area of a Domino's restaurant in Conover, N.C. Images of an employee putting cheese in his nostril before using it in a food order, and wiping a sponge on his rear end, were live on the video-sharing website for 48 hours, attracting coverage by the Consumerist and more than 1 million views before being removed. Despite telling company officials and police that no food tampering had truly occurred in the prank, the employees were arrested and the restaurant closed its doors in September. As of early November, there were 4.3 million references to this drama on Google.

• #3 Tim Horton's donation to anti-gay event - The Canadian restaurant chain Tim Hortons angered the gay and lesbian community by sponsoring a rally against same-sex marriage in Rhode Island, where the company operates stores. Through a Twitter protest that used the hashtag #TimHortonFail, petitions started, blog entries authored and mainstream media coverage sparked. The company pulled its sponsorship, but coverage continued and the episode generated 4.88 million Google references.

• #4 Nestle outreach to bloggers - Swiss food giant Nestle has been the focus of a boycott since 1977 over its sale of infant formula in developing nations, where poverty is rampant and it's tough to find clean water to mix with formula. The battle flared in September when Nestle invited mommy bloggers (and some dads) to its U.S. headquarters to discuss parenting issues. Breastfeeding advocates went ballistic in social media, trying to convince influential bloggers not to attend and accusing the company of PR dirty tricks. The issue was still raging on Twitter in early November, using the hashtag #nestlefamilies, and there were 1.1 million mentions on Google.

• #5 Glenn Beck advertising boycott - When conservative Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck called President Obama a racist, the African American political advocacy group Color of Change used social media to organize an advertising boycott. While Beck's ratings soared, dozens of brands prohibited the network from airing their commercials during the show. There were positive and negative #glennbeck tweets about the decision by advertisers to either stay or flee from the program. Google shows 576,000 pages of content on the issue.

• #6 Outraged iPhone want new discount on new 3GS phones - When Apple unveiled a faster iPhone capable of shooting video, there were plenty of existing iPhone owners who wanted to upgrade. They also wanted a deal. When neither AT&T nor Apple offered a loyalty program to appease fans, the crowd got ugly. Twitter was the battleground, with an #iphonersHateATT tag created and petitions circulated. While the campaign yielded only 15,000 signatures, it generated high-circulation media coverage and 987,000 Google references.

• #7 Facebook's terms and conditions - Some people don't want their long history of BFF's to become the property of Facebook. There was considerable online agita in February when the social network changed its conditions of service to limit the rights of users to erase their own data. Concerns voiced by the FB community spilled onto Twitter and into the pages of law journals and mainstream business press until the company tweaked the policy to better reflect the wishes of their users. Today, there are nearly 450,000 references to the affair.

• #8 Amazon's disappearing LGBT books - Amazon blamed a computer glitch for the sudden disappearance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender books. Some 57,000 titles were removed in April, catching the eye of several authors and quickly spilling into tweets, Facebook postings and eventually an article in The Wall Street Journal. As of early November, Google was indexing 430,000 pages of content on the incident.

• #9 Windows 7 HouseParty video - To launch its new operating system, Microsoft contracted with the marketing company HouseParty to organize hundreds of in-home events. The goal was to generate word-of-mouth and online buzz about Windows 7, but an instructional video aimed at party hosts derailed the messaging. "If this video is Microsoft's idea of a party, whoa -- I don't want to be a lame-ass by association," wrote Joe Wilcox on Betanews. At last count, YouTube had up served this six minute treasure 1.2 million times and Google had 129,000 pages on the topic.

Crises fueled by social media are a new phenomenon to most PR professionals. While the issues and responses may be similar to those we have faced before, the breakneck pace at which messages spread makes it imperative to have the tools to capture television, print, internet and social media conversations in real time and to curate responses.

Thankfully, many of the practitioners who have steered their organizations through these very visible online debacles are very open to sharing the things they did right and what they'd do differently if given the chance. My advice, follow them, friend them and learn from their experiences.