BP has purchased "oil spill" ad words through Google and Yahoo; results link to BP's website, complete with the tagline "how BP is helping." That, coupled with a $50 million television campaign, is the beginning of the oil company's attempts to get back into Americans' good graces - or at least convince them not to boycott its products.
By any measure the company has a long slog ahead thanks in large part to robust social media efforts to organize a boycott of the company - and poke fun of its efforts to stem the spill.
Social Media Influence took an in-depth look at how social media reacted to the BP oil spill in order to see what lessons could be learned from this debacle - aside from the obvious technical, regulatory and management issues that led to the spill in the first place. For companies seeking to manage their reputations online, the answer is disconcerting.
Before the age of blogs, Twitter and Facebook, the big sting for companies happened at the outset of the incident and what followed was a long tail of diminishing interest from the press and the public alike, the report said. "Such a scenario was much easier to manage as it was predictable. It stayed a threat only as long as it stayed in the public eye." The modern age of communications makes this phenomenon nearly obsolete, it continued. A brewing protest movement can spring out from nowhere, gathering followers until it attracts the attention of blogs, local news outfits, etc. "This added attention is just enough to push the movement into a new more visible light. This initial outside surge of interest is the tipping point, capturing the attention of a whole new group of people, which brings it to the attention now of the mainstream media."
From there, the movement experiences a third life and a fourth. "It's the tail that contains the sting now," Social Media Influence concluded, and the "half-life of these PR crises extends for weeks, months, even years more and has the capability to reignite yet again."
BP's Bottom Line
Bottom line for BP: within a matter of weeks, a Boycott BP movement sprung up with 356 offshoots on Facebook alone for a total of more than 325,000 committed members, thousands of whom are advocating email- and letter-writing campaigns to company officials and members of Congress and organizing flash protests, Social Media Influence said.
BP, of course, is a unique case - the magnitude of the oil spill's damage hardly needed a social media campaign to ignite protests. Also, BP has time on its side - Exxon, for example, has rehabilitated its image - as well as some precedent with other social media campaigns.
A social media campaign to Quit Facebook fizzled out despite the site’s privacy issues. Other companies, such as Toyota, have rehabilitated their images using social media as their own tool.
Other Cases
But online skirmishes between activists and brands are becoming a daily occurrence - and often times overwhelm a company with lightening speed. Bull Dog Reporter points to some of the top social media attacks last year where advocates went online to fight a company - and won. There was the previously unknown Dave Carroll's Canadian country music band Sons of Maxwell - unknown that is, until United Airlines’ baggage handlers damaged a $3,500 guitar that the band had checked onto a flight. "United gave Carroll the runaround when he tried to get compensation. The episode inspired a song and music video that includes the lyrics, "I should have flown with someone else, or gone by car, because United breaks guitars." It drew more than 16.9 million Google search references and 5 million views of the video on You Tube - as well as United’s fervent apologies.
Another example, Bull Dog said, was Canadian restaurant chain Tim Hortons sponsorship of a rally against same-sex marriage in Rhode Island, where the company operates stores. Through a Twitter protest that used the hashtag #TimHortonFail, petitions started, blog entries authored and mainstream media coverage sparked. The company pulled its sponsorship, after the episode generated 4.88 million Google references.
