Right.

I'm not going to write a long blog post about this, as there's already a good one here, and I really don't want to be one of those bloggers who rehash other people's posts, just to have something to write about. However! I will give my two cents, or what have you, and say; Jesus Christ, Nestlé. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ.

This has to be one of the worse cases of 'how not to use social media in a crisis' ever.

To be honest, at first I was leaning towards Nestlé. I feel sorry for whatever corporation Greenpeace set their bow and arrow on, as they're not exactly knowing for their subtlety in their accusations. It hits a nerve, and people who smear themselves unwittingly with orangutan-killing (or seal-killing, or whatever other cute animal-killing) products every day, throw up their self-righteous arms and cry out for the crucifixion of evil corp. XXX. It hits social media, and bang. People rant and rave - even if they don't really, really care (i.e. have they ever given a penny to Greenpeace?) - but, it's the chance they have to make their voices heard, so rant they will! Poor, poor corp. XXX. They never stood a chance. Aaaanyway. It was, as you probably know, this advert that got the ball rolling:


Have a break? from Greenpeace UK on Vimeo.

Mmm. Tasty. Nestlé then decided to make a Facebook page which, according to PR Week, is "an emergency online PR campaign to restore its reputation amid sustained criticism on the internet". Hmmm. Restore its reputation...... How best to do this? With comments like.....






















Or....






















Nestlé's updates and comments have fallen eerily quiet recently. One can only presume that people are being fired, and that brains are being stormed as the desperately figure out a) how on earth they managed to make such a complete mess out of this situation through social media - the very thing that should have (and could have!) been their lifeline in all this bloody mess, and b) now they've cocked this up, how the hell they're going to recover (or perhaps they're just having a break - sorry).

Ah, Google and read away. There are many, many blogs about this, and doubtless many, many more to come - what they should do, what they shouldn't do (seriously?), and probably one or five 'Top Ten Lists of How Social Media Can Help Nestlé' type posts as well (God help us).

I'm interested in seeing how they rescue themselves. I really am. It's pretty amusing how they've handled all this via Facebook. I wonder if they're telling people to shove their palm oil where the sun don't shine it in 140 characters....