Nestlé are no strangers to falling foul of the ethical lobby – the globally widespread boycott of Nestlé products over their aggressive marketing of baby milk formula started as far back as 1977, and rumbles on to this day. But their handling of the latest crisis, at least within the social media sphere, appears to be disastrous.

A campaign spearheaded by Greenpeace targets Nestlé’s use of palm oil in their products, which the environmental organisation claims is a major factor in destroying the rainforests which orang-utans rely on for their livelihood. The campaign was helped by a Panorama special recently which highlighted the company’s practices. Perhaps inevitably, the campaign’s latest movement is into the social media sphere, with the corporate Facebook page being invaded by protestors, many of whom have changed their profiles pictures to baby orangutans and a cleverly altered “Killer” KitKat logo. Corporate bashing isn’t new and Nestlé’s reaction deep in the boardroom may be a familiar sigh rather than panic. But as with so many companies, and as Paperchase found out to their cost recently, Nestlé ’s response to the crisis has not been to limit or mitigate the damage, but possibly to make things worse.

Killer Kit Kat

Dozens of Facebook users have posted their intentions to boycott Nestlé products, and other similar sentiments, on the official Nestlé fanpage, which to date has 90,000 followers. Nestlé have clearly heeded the mantra about an effective social media strategy equalling engagement. Unfortunately, this engagement has included sarcastic, irritable and downright rude responses to some of the messages from an employee who has clearly cracked under pressure. Our entire office guffawed at the response to one user “commending” the company for destroying the rainforest: “Unfortunately we have no house rules about sarcasm, so we’ll leave this post” (why not?) but their own sarcastic response to another user’s message “to the director of Nestlé” does not put the company in a good light: “Get it off your chest – we’ll pass it on.” And getting embroiled in unwinnable arguments breaches virtually every rule of PR.

Breaking Every PR Rule

Even some well wishers kindly point out the folly of their approach – one linking to this excellent piece.  Even so, at time of writing, the feisty responses remain on the page. Perhaps there is little point in engaging with the mob who have the bit between their teeth, one thing is clear – borderline abuse of people who may have been erstwhile customers is catastrophic. I would put it down to the social media engagement being put in the hands of a junior marketing person who is, frankly, clueless when it comes to social media best practices. The blame shouldn’t even be on that individual; it should be on senior management who have clearly deemed social media as an essential part of the marketing machine, yet not worthy of being handled by senior people or adequately checked and signed off. Doubtless Vodafone would agree with me.  In the meantime, however, they may be horrified by the needled reaction to a Helen Constable suggesting the obvious – that an ill-informed junior has been ill-advisedly put in charge of the Facebook account, with another sarcastic reply.

More Sarcasm

Like Vodafone, today’s events might encourage Nestlé to rethink their social media strategy – but for a company whose handling of negative PR has been enriched by years of experience, it is slightly surprising to see that they didn’t see this coming.

But what else could they have done? Extreme options could be to close the page altogether, or delete all negative posts. Both would be unwise. Digging in to the bunker with a good supply of choccy bars and waiting for the storm to blow over would probably be the best idea. The benefits of the Facebook page probably outweigh the drawbacks, however it’s worth pointing out that only those existing “fans” who actually visit the page will see all the negative messages as only Nestlé-written posts will appear in news feeds (admittedly with subsequent comments).

As the Evening Standard’s Paul Waugh pointed out at the Lewis PR Social Media Summit last week, social media has the effect of making stories flare up quickly, but also peter out more quickly than they would in traditional media. It remains to be seen how long this particular story will rumble on for – the campaign is backed by environmental heavyweights and is not restricted to social media. Yet again, however, there are basic lessons to be learned.

An Orangutan Speaks

Are you in charge of Nestlé’s social media strategy? Want help digging yourselves out of a hole? Give Louise at The Social Media Academy a call on 020 7390 8525 and find out how we could help.