It never ceases to amaze me how badly some major corporations do social media. Time and time again they get it so wrong. I like to use these cases to illustrate to others what went wrong, and how it could have been so much better.
Greenpeace have been running a campaign against VW for some time now. According to Greenpeace VW are lobbying the EU against vital climate laws. They also have an issue with the fact that although VW have developed Blue Motion technology, which would greatly reduce carbon emissions, they won’t fit it as standard in all their cars. It would cost them very little to do this, however the company can offer it as an additional extra to the green minded and charge a whole lot more for it.
Despite this sustained campaign someone at VW didn’t seem to think twice about posting on their Facebook wall the following message:
We hope you had a fantastic New Year. Do you have any resolutions and what would you like to see us do more of this year?
A Greenpeace volunteer spotted the comment, and reposted it on the Greenpeace wall. Within hours hundreds of Greenpeace activists had responded saying this year they would like VW to stop lobbying against climate laws, and sit down and talk with Greenpeace. On last count the comments were over 1500.
VW not only failed to reply to these comments, but a few days later they actually started deleting some of them. This resulted in the story ending up on the front page on the Huffington Post. This is pretty much the dictionary definition of a social media fail.
Now I’m not here to give a lending hand to people like VW, but I do find it interesting to look at what they could have done. Here are the options they had available to them.
Make a statement
VW do have a certain amount of green cudos. Their Blue Motion technology is apparently quite good. They could have easily made a statement on a blog (linking it to Facebook) explaining what they had contributed to the green movement with a simple line about how they acknowledged Greenpeace’s concerns.
Agree to meet
Would agreeing to spend 30 minutes around the table with Greenpeace be such a bad thing? Again they’re not agreeing to anything, but they are at least showing that they are willing to listen. It would also have made the activists feel like they had a victory and I suspect they would have pretty quickly eased off.
Reshape the conversation
After acknowledging the concerns of the activists they could have then tried to reshape the conversation, directing it back on to the topic they wanted. A simple comment like: “Thanks to all the Greenpeace people who have commented. We’ve heard your concerns, and we’ll forward your messages to the relevant people. In the meantime perhaps we could hear from some other people about their areas of interest.”
Most brands, even the “good” ones have their enemies and detractors. There are lots of climate skeptics posting on the Greenpeace wall, nationalists moaning to refugee supporter groups, and just about everyone hates social workers despite the fact they change the lives of thousands of people every year. We have to be ready to meet our detractors. We don’t have to agree with them, or give in to their demands, but we do have to acknowledge their concerns, present our position in a calm and responsible manner, and then try and move the converation on. What we don’t do is ignore and delete. Well not unless you want to end up on the front page of the Huffington Post.