Domino's and How to Deal With Social Media Emergency Responses
Monday, April 20th, 2009An "Emergency Response" approach might be what's needed re: quick Social Media 
responses to real world and online faux pas.
Critical to get Info out fast
Having been involved in an Emergency Response Strike Team while at UNOCAL, a global energy resources ("Big Oil") company, we knew that it's critical to get accurate information out to the media/public as quickly as possible.
With Domino's Pizza's social media problem hitting the web as well as the traditional news sources within the last week it seemed timely to offer a possible solution for future events like this.
Brief Background of Domino's Situation
Some Domino's employees filmed several YouTube videos which showed them treating pizzas/food at Domino's in ways that would cause great shock and distaste for Domino's customers. This shock could lead to reduced sales as Domino's customers may wonder whether this was an isolated event, or is widespread throughout their company's locations and employees. Domino's didn't respond to the videos right away, taking a "wait and see" attitude at first. This allowed the situation to play out online, particularly on Twitter.
For more detailed info and links to the now-pulled videos see the Consumerist's post: Domino's Rogue Employees Do Disgusting Things To The Food, Put It On YouTube. Since then Domino's president has made/uploaded an apology video to YouTube.
- Critical to get Info out fast
- Brief Background of Domino's Situation
- Major Problems
- Result
- What's Needed: A Different Mind-set
- Take a Lesson from the Emergency Response PR Guidelines of an Oil Company
- 10 Brief Guidelines for Social Media Emergency Responses
- 10 Necessary Actions BEFORE Brand Emergencies/Disasters
- Bottom Line
Major Problems
- Was the response in Social Media quick enough?
- Was the YouTube video apology accepted as being a genuine apology?
Result
This entire scenario certainly caused a "brand emergency" and could cause a "brand disaster" for Domino's.
What's Needed: A Different Mind-set
With other company's having similar problems, e.g., JetBlue's runway fiasco awhile back, it might be helpful if companies considered an entirely different way of responding which would require a different mind-set:
Consider what happened as the worst possible event possible for your company, product(s), and brand. Then act...fast! And take action where your customers are likely to be/read/interact with their news (e.g., Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, or where-ever your customers are likely to be engaged at).
Take a Lesson from the Emergency Response PR Guidelines of an Oil Company
Here's an excerpt from BTC Pipeline Company's Oil Spill Response Plan - Azerbaijan:
"Oil spills are typically highly visible events and will generate public interest and concern. The media and the public will base their opinions on information that is available to them. It is important that they have access to factual and timely information. It is well documented that refusal to talk to the media during a crisis situation creates the assumption that some wrongdoing has taken place. If BCT does not provide accurate and timely information, reporters will obtain their information from potentially unreliable sources or those who can only speculate on actual events or actions. A "no comment" position can adversely affect BTC's reputation as a responsible corporate citizen, and could result in restrictive legislation that could affect both BTC and others in the industry. It is BTC's policy to cooperate with the media and make timely, accurate information available to the public."
This was written in 2005, well before the recent social media explosion. But its possible application to bad web PR situations is crystal clear: Get ahead of the situation and respond - respond as quickly and as well as you can.
10 Brief Guidelines for Social Media Emergency Responses
- Get a response out as quickly as possible.
- At a minimum, respond in the venue the original SM Emergency occurred in, e.g., YouTube.
- Then consider other social media venues your customers may frequent and consider creating information streams of communication in them, e.g., Twitter.
- Get your CEO/President out in front of the situation...and do it in a believable way (minus points for not looking into the camera and talking to us).
- Continue monitoring the situation and communicating with your customers.
- Consider ways to put your customers at ease.
- Consider ways to win your customers back (rewards, etc.).
- Be truthful and transparent throughout this process.
- Mean what you say.
- Do what you mean.
10 Necessary Actions BEFORE Brand Emergencies/Disasters
- Do Reputation Monitoring.
- Monitor the web re: your company name, product(s), brand(s), and principals/executives.
- Do Scenario Planning and Risk Assessments for everything you can imagine...and more.
- Consider "what if's" for likely as well as unlikely situations.
- Definitely consider scenarios for the worst possible situations.
- If you already have disaster scenarios you've created in the past, dust them off, and make them current given new/currently available communications methods.
- Assume that the walls of all of your facilities, file cabinets, hard drives, servers, and "cloud computing" are transparent.
- Revise your social media emergency response plans accordingly.
- Do SWOT analyses for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats for your company and each of its subsidiaries, products, brands, as well as for your competitors.
- Rinse and repeat (start at #1 again as this is an ongoing process).
Bottom Line
Ideally you want visitors and customers to be attracted to your website and online presences (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc.) in the best of circumstances so they will have the best possible impressions of your company, brand, products, etc.
Cold dose of Reality: Life isn't always Ideal, so be prepared for the worst and act accordingly. And most of all act quickly!
Your visitors and customers are probably more than willing to meet you half-way, but the burden is on your company and all of your employees to let them know what's going on (create quick communication streams, e.g. via Twitter), what you're doing to solve it (currently), how/why this will never happen again, and how you'd like to form/continue the relationship with them (communication and enticement-wise).
