You’ve got to take the Good with the Bad

2012-02-14 11:13:14 by Verity

The world’s biggest restaurant chain McDonald’s has been on the news agenda this week. Unfortunately for McDonald’s this wasn’t focussed on the fact that it’s creating 2,500 new jobs in the UK, but overshadowed by a social media disaster. No wonder they say bad news makes good news.

By using the paid-for hashtag ‘McDStories’ McDonald’s wanted to celebrate the good work of its employees and invite customers to share happy tales of the food chain. The campaign quickly backfired with unsatisfied diners hijackacking the hashtag with horror stories such as food poisoning, poor animal welfare and low quality meat.

Consequently the campaign was pulled within hours of its launch due to the negativity dominating the official Twitter page.

Social media campaigns are a fantastic way to generate a quick buzz about a product, service or brand. However they do bring an element of risk as there’s no control over the response.

There is more chance of receiving negative PR through something as open as Twitter – there’s always someone eagerly waiting to pick fault – and a process needs to be in place to readily deal with this. In the case of the newly dubbed ‘#McFail’, McDonald’s dedicated social media director, Rick Wion, “set about a change of course”, which saw the number of messages on the topic fall from a peak of 1600 down to less than 100.

In order to maintain positive social media relations, businesses should:

• Consider the Impact – Think about the type of followers you have and how they may react. Is the campaign worthy enough to be ultimately rewarding for the business?
• Devise a Contingency Plan – Before the campaign is launched create a back-up plan to deal with unforeseen consequences.
• Deal with the Negative – If the tweet responses are negative, companies need to act quickly with a high standard of customer service to maintain good relations and to protect the business.