Fans palmed off by Nestlé
Today, Nestlé has become the latest “how not to do social media” case study. Following a campaign by Greenpeace to put an end to the company’s unsustainable use of palm oil, a number of people have been changing their Facebook profile pictures to Greenpeace’s KitKat mock-up logo.
Nestlé’s response on Facebook? “Please don’t post using an altered version of any of our logos as your profile pic – they will be deleted.”
Unsurprisingly, this censorship statement on the social network has caused a crescendo of backlash. But rather than try and diffuse mounting anger towards the brand, Nestlé’s sarcastic, dismissive responses have only served to inflame and enrage fans even more.
Conversation that was confined to Nestlé’s Fan Page – conversation that it had the opportunity to engage with and quell – is quickly spreading across the web. A quick Twitter search shows around 200 tweets about Nestlé in the last 10 minutes alone.
Nestlé is not the first big brand to have had a major slip-up when it comes to training staff how to communicate and respond in online spaces. Both Paperchase and Vodafone have both demonstrated this on Twitter of late.
This really indicates that a number of brands are failing to train their staff effectively when it comes to online PR. Understanding the appropriate language and tone to use in online communication (as opposed to dictation) is still not being effectively conveyed.
Training staff to understand how to interact with customers online should be just as important as offline interactions (the same comments from Nestlé would be just as shocking if they were said over the telephone or face-to-face). What’s more, ensuring staff are equipped to monitor online conversations and identify when negative comments are becoming full blown crisis management concerns is also key.
Having a social media policy hidden somewhere on an intranet isn’t enough.
Community management should be about empowering your community, engaging them and talking honestly about your about mistakes, and not the heavy-handed management style employed by Nestlé.
I’ll leave you to reflect on a couple of Nestlé’s business principles:
“Nestlé recognizes that its consumers have a sincere and legitimate interest in the behaviour, beliefs and actions of the Company behind brands in which they place their trust, and that without its consumers the Company would not exist.”
“Nestlé is conscious of the fact that the success of a corporation is a reflection of the professionalism, conduct and the responsible attitude of its management and employees. Therefore recruitment of the right people and ongoing training and development are crucial.”
Hmmm….
Louise wrote this on 19.03.10 – what do you think?
It's filed in the Mistakes, Social media, Social networks box
