The BP oil spill is continuing to create havoc and chaos in the Gulf of Mexico, and impacting thousands of affected residents in these communities, business owners in the seafood industry, and impacting the environment in a way that some experts are speculating how long it would take to recover from this event. In addition, millions are boycotting BP stations and other companies in wake of this crisis, which of course is causing panic among the individual gas station owners. The BP Oil spill is going to be considered to be the Exxon-Valdez of the 21st century – and will most likely replace this particular case as being an example of what not to do in terms of public relations and crisis communications. However, you have to add in the third element that this case is creating: the power and challenge of managing social media. BP has learned this lesson the hard way when their Twitter account was hacked in and others were setting up fake accounts with tweets and updates that were so out of the ordinary and reflected poorly on the company.
After reviewing what is going on with the BP oil spill, there are certainly some key lessons that we can take away from this situation based on BP’s social media, public relations, and crisis communications practices:
Public relations: We can see in this case that the art of the carefully crafted message was not followed here – it appears that BP is saying and doing all of the “right” things that we in Public relations advocate (ex. having an apology statement). However, just saying you are sorry is not enough – you have to take the responsibility and face the consequences head on. In addition, I am not sure that it was the smartest idea for Tony Haywood to be pictured relaxing on his yacht in England a few weeks when millions are demanding answers and updates on what is going on in the Gulf of Mexico. As they say – perception is reality – and this was a key thing to note in this case. Visuals say a lot more than words – and we as public relations professionals can learn from this case and understand that we not only have to have the right message to our audiences, but we also have to act accordingly and proactively.
Crisis Communications: It appears that the types of message strategies that BP is doing so far is either denying what is going on and their safety measures, justifying their off-shore drilling to the public and government officials, and apologizing for their actions. Well, these are just a few ways that they could have approached this – but what about really getting on board and having a more collaborative effort with the community? Why is there no coordination with local officials in terms of the clean-up? BP is not necessarily giving people information to reduce their levels of uncertainty regarding this crisis, or even action steps that they could take to make a difference in the crisis. This needs to be done – and BP is not doing this effectively – it will be interesting to see if they plan to do this in the near future.
Social media: In this particular case, there are so many lessons that can be taken away from this from a social media perspective. Social media has allowed people to get online and share their frustrations, anger, and concerns regarding this oil spill with others who are on the same boat – and bypassing the traditional media as well. In addition, social media has created new issues that companies in crisis need to be aware of. They have to make sure that they are managing their online presence accordingly, make sure that they have all of the domain names and social media user names that are associated with the brand, monitor key terms and hashtags associated with the brand, and listen to what people are saying and responding to their concerns. This is going to be definitely one case that public relations professionals are going to look at in the future in terms of how BP handled this case using social media.
The BP Oil Spill is continuing on as being one of the cases that will be known for their social media, crisis communications, and public relations efforts – but not necessarily for a good reason. Public relations professionals need to actively watch and learn from these experiences to make sure that this type of thing does not happen again – and what issues can we look at that can give us an idea on how to proactively address them before they turn into crises.
Hope you all are having a wonderful day.
Best Wishes,
Karen
0 Comments