A social media catastrophe

Nestle had to lean the hard way, the types of communication that worked with employees did not work with the public. The shocking and graphic nature of the Peta video below required an immediate and serious response, the lack of response to the issue and trying to block the Peta video from Youtube only fanned the flames of angry internet voices.

Trying to engage in top down and managerial styles of communication with the public just lead to lots of spiteful social media users leaving derogatory comments. Asking people to not post images of altered logos on the Facebook page was another way of ignoring the issue at hand and coming off as a heartless corporation. In order to connect with the audience  and engage with them the audience needs to feel heard.

Changing the management of social media to a style that addressed the issue with transparency and an admission that they had a problem and exactly what they needed to do to get to a solution went over much better with people.

The things that I took away from Nestle’s experience is that communication on social media should be direct, personal, and always directly about the issue at hand rather than trying to redirect or sidestep around a crisis.

When an incident occurs the way to engage is specific information about what went wrong, owning up to it if was on your end and laying out the steps to remediation in simple language without being overly technical.