Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Nestle social media kerfuffle


Nestle has recently found itself in boiling water with its reaction to public criticism of its product on its Facebook page.

A recent video advertisement created by Greenpeace depicts a man eating an orangutan finger as a result of Nestle using palm oil derived from environmentally unsound practices that endanger orangutan habitat and rain forests. The video quickly spread through the internet and resulted in comments criticizing Nestle on its Facebook fan page.

Normally, any public relations specialist would know how to diffuse this potential PR disaster by acting in a calm, professional manner that shows respect to its fans and customers.

Unfortunately, this was not how Nestle choose to act and consequently taught us all a lesson in how 'not' to handle PR relations on social media. Nestle employees in charge of the Facebook page took the attacks on the brands as a personal attack and acted in a unprofessional manner, speaking in a sarcastic manner, deleting negative user comments, and generally acting belligerently. This only fueled further discontent and attracted further negative attention and the situation quickly turned into a public relations nightmare.

In retrospect, Nestle could have took sometime to think before they spoke, and though a personal tone is important to use in social media, in this case, it would have been wiser to have taken a more professional stance, that listened to the concerns of consumers. Honesty that admits clear mistakes should be paramount in dealing with customer relations. A community is exists to discuss ideas, empower people and be a tool to listen in to customer's needs, not oppress their opinions.
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