Using a social media arsenal, Greenpeace seems to be winning the fight to stop Nestle from using (what they claim is) environmentally not-friendly palm oil. (More on the Greenpeace claim here) It started with this disturbing video where a guy bites into an orangutan finger that came in a Kit-Kat wrapper. Of course, the spot goes viral. And of course, Nestle had it pulled from YouTube. That was their first mistake.
Clever as they are, Greenpeace A) re-posts the video at Vimeao and B) turns to Twitter and other social channels to announce the video's disappearance. And suddenly, a video that had maybe 1,000 views, and probably would have faded from there, ends up with 179,000 views (as of this posting).
This week, the fight spilled over onto Facebook where people left less-than-flattering comments on Nestle's fan page, some criticizing the company's social media approach. For example, "social media is about embracing your market, engaging and having a conversation rather than preaching!" Nestle deleted some of the comments. Mistake number two.
Furthermore, Nestle responded with "juvenile" statements like, "Thanks for the lesson in manners. Consider yourself embraced. But it's our page, we set the rules, it was ever thus." (AdAge) Mistake number three.
At least one PR expert was "horrified" by Nestle's handling of the situation. (See the AdAge article for that.)
Welcome to this backwards age of media, Nestle. Where everyone has a bullhorn. Where "even the smallest person can change the course of the future." Some advice? Here's a prayer I saw posted on the wall at battered women's shelters, food banks and other human services buildings where I was interning as a technologist in the late 90s:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference
Put another way, you can't really control what people say, watch and think. But you can control your products and business practices.
Look, I don't know if there's any validity to Greenpeace's claims. But if Nestle can't say to them, "you're wrong and here's the evidence." Then they should either say, A) "yeah, that's what we're doing and we're cool with it" or B) "we're in the wrong, we're changing it, here's the plan."
I think Nestle initially reacted horribly to the social media attack. It’s very clear that Nestle did not have a social media crisis strategy in place, nor did they put any guidelines in place as they began to respond to these attacks. It seems that Nestle just realized how important a complete social media strategy, with crisis guidelines is to a company in this day and age of Social Media.
I feel Nestle has begun to take steps to recover for their mistakes. See "Letter to Greenpeace": http://www.nestle.com/Resource.axd?Id=6AED7940-5140-4C34-BD16-FCF2C86E543F
Though I still think the responses on Facebook has forever tainted the company’s reputation. People have their own opinions and if you chose as a company to have a social media site, you should never delete people’s comments positive or negative, or essentially tell them they do not have manners. They are the ones involved in deforestation, not the people commenting on Facebook.
Good Luck Nestle….
[...] NGO’s have been quick to recognise social media’s potential to thrust their issue into the mainstream and raise awareness for their cause with little funds or resource required. ‘Hacktivists’ are on the rise and increasingly sophisticated. ‘Subvertising’ is a powerful tactic NGO’s such as Green Peace have already used to good effect. If ever there was any doubt on the potential brand damage a NGO with a flair for social media can cause, just ask Nestlé. [...]