Reputation Management
CPR, Dogs & Running Shoes: Reputation Management Lessons from Pearl Izumi
A person giving a dog CRP to promote running shoes? Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. As social media as continued to evolve and become widely adapted, marketers have been taking the opportunity to use their social media voice to market to consumers. While being able to promote your brand in a social environment and having the ability to have a real conversation with your customer is a very positive thing, the actions that some brands have took on social media have ended up damaging the brand’s reputation.
In a 2013 Canadian running magazine, Pearl Izumi, a high-quality running shoe designer released an add that showed a runner (wearing Pearl Izumi running shoes) having to give his dog CPR. While the ad was actually created for and distributed in a print publication, consumers took to social media to voice their concerns and opinions regarding the advertisement. This is significant because it shows that even though the ad was in print, consumers reach out to social media to voice their concerns and get their message across to the brand. The brand definitely took some hard hits on social media:
As an animal lover, the ad was offensive to me. Because many people feel a special bond with animals, why would a company want to post an ad that makes people feel empathy for a dog that has passed away? Personally, that did not make we want to purchase new running shoes! What were they thinking?
Pearl Izumi responded by pulling the ad from all future publications as well as issuing an apology on their Facebook page. In addition to the apology, the company donated $10,000 to the Boulder Valley Humane Society in Colorado (where the US corporate offices are located). While I do feel that they were sincere with their apology and attempted to “put their money where their mouth is” by making the $10,000 donation, I feel that they could have took the opportunity to educate their audience (while the audience was being extra attentive to the brand) about the proper way to run with dogs. Because dogs can’t tell you that they are exhausted and need to take a break, there actually have been instances where dogs have ran themselves to death trying to keep up with their owner. While this is a very unfortunate circumstance that people don’t want to think about, it happens. Since Pearl Izumi already opened up this can of worms, why not take the opportunity to educate and help prevent actual occurrences like this from happening?
Since the reputation blunder, Pearl Izumi has posted more photos of man’s best friend- only this time, they have been more careful about their posts!
KitchenAid Social Media Mix-up
Have you ever seen a post from a brand or individual you follow and thought “what in the world were they thinking by posting that?”. Unfortunately, social media accounts get hacked quite often. It doesn’t just happen to individuals, but large corporations like Delta Airlines and Burger King. It happens so frequently now that people automatically assume that the account was hacked when they see one of these posts. We’re so accustomed to seeing hacked accounts that we often give the brand or individual the benefit of a doubt. Sometime when you see an off the wall post, however, the account wasn’t hacked- the account was just posted to by mistake by someone who actually has the ability to post onto the account. This is what happened with the kitchen appliances brand KitchenAid.
In 2008, right before Barack Obama was elected president, his grandmother passed away. Following her death, the following statement was posted onto KitchenAid’s (@KitchenAidUSA) Twitter account: “Obama’s gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president’ #nbcpolitics”. Although it appeared that the account may have been hacked, that was not the case. One of KitchenAid’s social media team members accidentally posted the tweet onto the corporate account instead of on his own account. Although the tweet was quickly removed by KitchenAid, it was seen by thousands of people. In fact, the tweet was also discussed outside of social media in places such as The Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, Forbes, and Fast Company. Following the tweet, KitchenAid issued the following apology: “Deepest apologies for an irresponsible tweet that is in no way a representation of the brand’s opinion. #nbcpolitics”. As if they didn’t think that the first policy was enough, they then issued a policy directly to the president: “I would like to personally apologize to President @BarackObama, his family and everyone on Twitter for the offensive tweet sent earlier”.
While I feel that the first apology was necessary, I think that the second policy was unnecessary. I understand that they wanted to make sure that the Obama family knew that the tweet was not representative of a corporate stance, Obama wasn’t actually tagged in the original tweet. I feel like by posting the second apology tweet, they were bringing more attention to the situation than what was actually needed.
The situation that occurred with KitchenAid is a lesson that all social media managers can learn from. Because what is posted on social media can be so harmful to your brand’s reputation (and for your personal career as well), is is so important to not cross your personal social media accounts with your brand accounts. Yes, this was an accident, but it could have been prevented by this social media manager making sure he/she was logged into the correct account prior to posting. But, everyone is human and mistakes do happen.
Have you ever been in a situation where you or anyone on your brand’s social media team accidentally posted onto the wrong account? How did you resolve the situation? Do you feel that there should be more roadblocks in place so that posts like the KitchenAid example don’t happen in the future?
Social Media and Reputation Management: Hitting Customer Reviews Head-on
Every social media manager’s worse nightmare revolves around reputation management. We spend so much time thinking about ways to create messages that our customers want to hear. We spend countless hours hoping to receive fantastic reviews and getting feedback from satisfied customers. We live for the moment when some random customer posts a positive post on one of our social media sites. We can’t wait to pass those posts along to management!
But what happens when the post is bad? Really, really bad? Thankfully in my professional experience, this hasn’t happened too frequently. But when it does, you have to be prepared. This means working with business stakeholders, PR, communications, and legal. While every negative post is different, we still have to have a cohesive plan in place so that we are able to do what needs to be done in a timely manner. In this week’s post, I will be reviewing both positive and a negative social media posts from the hospitality industry. It’s important to note that these posts are dated and used as examples for educational purposes only.
Post #1: Hyatt’s Positive Review…With a Twist!
Suggested Response:
Thank you for taking time to review your family’s most recent trip to Orlando’s Hyatt Regency! Reviewers like you give us the opportunity to ensure that our hotel is exceeding our guest’s expectations. We are very pleased to hear that you had such a wonderful stay. It is truly a complement that you chose to come back and stay with us for your family vacation. We are happy to hear that your children enjoyed one of our property’s newest additions, the pool. Although Florida weather can be unpredictable at times, we are glad that your family was still able to enjoy this new amenity despite the brief storm. It’s also great to hear that you were able to take advantage of our luxurious spa and restaurants. Next time you’re here, be sure to check out another great restaurant, Napa, where kids under 3 eat breakfast for free.
Again, that you for choosing our hotel and providing valuable feedback that will allow our team to make adjustments to our property so that all of your future stays continue to exceed your expectations. If you’re still looking to schedule that last-minute summer trip, we have several summer specials that you may want to take advantage of! If you have any questions or would like to discuss our property further, please feel free to contact me directly at any time. It has been a pleasure reading your review and having your family as guests!
Sincerely,
Whitney Amerson
Social Media Manager, Hyatt Regency Orland0
407-284-1234
Post #2: Hilton’s Negative Review
Suggested Response:
Thank you for taking the time to review our hotel and share your experience with us. I sincerely apologize for your most recent experience with our hotel, as the experience you have described does not meet our standards. I will make sure that your feedback is discussed with our management team promptly. The appropriate actions will be taken to ensure that this does not happen again to you or another guest. Because I know that our hotel has many great things to offer, I would love for you to give our hotel a second chance to exceed your expectations. At your convince, please call me so that we can work together on planning your next stay at our property. I have a few things in mind that I think you would want to take advantage of. I am looking forward to discussing how we can exceed your expectations and be the foundation for a great, memorable vacation!
Sincerely,
Whitney Amerson
Social Media Manager, Hilton Fort Lauderdale Marina
954-463-4000
While I am no stranger to generating responses for social media posts, I found this assignment to be quite difficult. Although I do work in a very different industry with very different problems, that wasn’t where the “hang-up” occurred. I am so accustomed to having stakeholders, PR, communications, and our legal team to discuss our approach for these types of posts with. It was very difficult to generate posts on my own. Hats off to any social media manager who doesn’t have anyone to lean-on when it comes to reputation management. It’s a tough job to do alone!
The Social Potter 
You Don’t Own Your Social Media Pages- Your Customers Do!
Posted on Updated on
The tricky part about reputation management and post moderation is determining how and if you want to respond to these comments. Not all customer posts require a response. From my experience, I’ve noticed that some customers just want to vent about there experience and don’t really expect a comment back. In some instances, you choose not to respond directly on the post, but try to pull the customer into a private phone conversation with the customer service team. In this week’s post, I will be examining two separate social media posts (one from a customer to a hotel and one from a viewer to a mainstream news network) to determine what, in my opinion, the appropriate response. One thing that I’ve learned is that no matter what your response is, some people just cannot be pleased nor satisfied. But as social media managers, we have to do our best!
Post #1: To a hotel: “I am disgusted about the state of your restaurant on 1467 Justin Kings Way. Empty tables weren’t cleared and full of remains of meals. It makes me wonder what the state of your kitchen is?!!! Gross.”
Let’s first analyze the post to see if we can determine what the customer is really looking to get across. By posting this to the hotel’s Facebook page, the customer is wanting to bring attention to the issue. He wasn’t complaining about the food or the service that he directly received, but was mentioning the overall state of the restaurant, which makes the issue seem more relevant to the hotel’s Facebook page audience. I mean, who wants to eat in a restaurant that had half-eaten food sitting all over the place and is “gross”? In my college days I was a waitress, so I completely understand that things happen. Perhaps the hotel received an unexpected business rush on a day they were understaffed to handle the situation and the buss boy was now serving tables and helping the waitresses and bartender instead of cleaning the tables. It’s kinda rare, but I’ve seen it happen. I feel that the hotel should respond in an honest manner and invite the guest back to try out the restaurant again. Perhaps they can even brag about their high food service rating score (assuming that to be the case).
Proposed Response: Hi John. Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback regarding our restaurant on Justin Kings Way. We want to assure you the the atmosphere you described experiencing at our restaurant is not to our standards nor does it exemplify the atmosphere that we aim to create for our customers. Due to miscalculations on our part, we were very understaffed during your visit. It was unfortunate that our restaurant, which has a health code score of 98%, was perceived as less than stellar. We would love the opportunity to change your perception of the restaurant. Please send us your email address in a private message and we will send you coupons to use on your next visit. We sincerely hope to see you again!
Post #2: To a mainstream news network: “Your reporting on the Middle East is biased in the extreme. You gave almost all your air time to spokespeople for the Israelis last night and there was no right to reply for the Palestinians. The conflict upsets me so much and your reporting of it, saddens me even more and makes me f**king furious.” (Let us assume the reporting was balanced, with equal time to both sides.)
The first thing that I notice about post #2 is that it involved political viewpoints on hot topics that tend to polarize people. The viewer is clearly upset and angry about about the newscast that he just witnessed. Honestly, he probably wrote this post immediately following the newscast and didn’t give himself time to think clearly about the situation prior to posting. We are assuming that the newscast was actually very balanced and reported on each side equally. My first instinct is to reply with a link to the newscast in question and discuss that each side of the issue received 10 minutes of discussion. However, in the case of this post, I feel that the best thing to do is to not respond. Because this individual is upset, I wouldn’t want the conversation to be elevated and turn into an online debate between him and the brand. Since the post stated his opinion, I feel it’s best to leave it at that and not validate it by replying. In this type of situation, I’ve seen where other views respond to the post instead. This seems to work out pretty well as far as generating engagement for your Facebook page. Not all comments require responses. It’s up to the social media team to understand their brand and audience and determine the best way to moderate comments, keep their customers happy and positively promote their brand.
Do you agree with the response that I proposed for Post #1? If you were the customer who made that post, would you feel inclined to accept the coupon offer and try the restaurant again? If your experience was very different, would you feel like you wanted to remove the negative comment that you previously posted on the hotel’s Facebook page?
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This entry was posted in Social Media Ethics and tagged comment moderation, Reputation Management, Social Media.