Pepco Follows Social Media Playbook in Power Outage

This past weekend more than 301,000 customers in Maryland and the District of Columbia lost power after unusually harsh thunderstorms hit the area. The storm, which clocked in at 90 miles an hour in some parts of the area, was over within 20 minutes. The power outage, though, lasted for days with service not restored for many until Thursday. Customers quickly became disgruntled with the utility, posting their ire on Twitter and in the blogosphere. Unlike other PR crises - last winter for example, when the outcry over high bills reached a crescendo on Twitter - this time Pepco knew what to do. By Monday it had in place  a dedicated staffer to respond to the hate on Twitter under the handle Pepco Connect. (via the Washington Post).

Pepco is hardly alone in turning to social media to counter a brewing PR disaster. Even Apple, notorious for its lack of social media outreach, has established a Twitter account in the wake of the issue over the antenna-based reception problems of iPhone 4.0. Other beleaguered companies from Toyota to Southwest Airlines to, most notably, BP have used social and online media to respond to complaints or criticisms - to varying degrees of success. That is because using social media to combat negative PR is not an exact science given how quickly a conversation can turn on the internet. There are, though, guidelines emerging for this slippery art that companies can try to follow - and hope for the best. These include:

Maybe you can't measure the benefits, but now is not the time to think about that.

There has been much debate about how to value social media outreach and its ROI.  It is an interesting and, in these fiscally conservative times, a necessary conversation. Just not during a crisis. Proceed from faith that your social media efforts will at least slow the downhill rolling stone that has become your company's reputation and get started without worrying about metrics or benchmarks.

Claim every single possible URL or handle with your company name, if you haven't already.

BP didn't think to claim the Twitter handle BP Global PR, an account that was established after the spill for the sole purpose of mocking BP's efforts to plug the leak by purporting to be the voice of BP. It has attracted 188,025 followers with such needling posts as "Tony Hayward is leaving us because YOU all demonized him! Make it right, and leave him with some kind words." Enough said.

People are going to talk. Accept it.

Between January 1 and April 20, 2010, BP had a largely positive image with bloggers and other social media users. Unsurprisingly after the oil rig explosion, it was mentioned far more frequently, and negatively, in blog and other social media posts, according to Sysomos: 92,905 times in blogs, 69,273 times in news items, and in 243,903 tweets and 202,697 message board postings. (via MarketingCharts). As the amount of social media chatter about BP dramatically increased, so did the negative overtone to that chatter.

Don't assume it will stay this way forever.

BP is a special case - it may be unable to rehabilitate its image anytime in the foreseeable future. However that is not true for most companies. Such firms as Toyota have rehabilitated their images in part by using social media as a tool.

Don't assume they'll win.

Not every social media campaign succeeds. A social media campaign to Quit Facebook fizzled out despite the site's privacy issues.

Get the right person to head your efforts.

Pepco tapped Andre Francis, a 25-year-old who is on his first week into the job. So far, he has done well soothing outraged customers even as he was unable to offer up what they really wanted: electricity.

In general, though, the wise course is not to assign a junior staffer or inexperienced agency to a crisis social media campaign. Nestle found itself on the defensive earlier this year after an attack lodged by Greenpeace on YouTube and its Facebook page over its palm oil sourcing activities. Nestle, which has weathered its share of corporate crises and protests over the decades, handled this one poorly, in large part because the company was caught off guard by the viral and social media elements to the campaign - but also because some of the comments it made in response were seen as needlessly antagonistic.

"Had Nestle's social media team been experienced in crisis management and properly trained, Greenpeace's attack on the Nestle Facebook page could have been made to fizzle out in under an hour," writes Brand Builder. "Corporate communications isn't about creative copy and pushing it out through a breadth of channels. It's professional chess."

Pepco, though, was lucky or smart or both with its choice of Francis. His responses have been along the lines of "I understand your frustration" ; "I understand your concern" ; "I appreciate your humor." As it happened, when he first joined the corporate communications office at Pepco a customer-oriented Twitter account was only part of his duties, the Post reported. Pepco then decided to turn it into a full-time position, with the start date on Monday, July 26. The storm hit on Sunday, July 25.