Social Media – Helping or hurting businesses?

Social media is being used more and more today, from individuals uploading a record of 750 million photos over New Year’s weekend, to businesses Tweeting about their products, to advertisers leaking Super Bowl commercials which make it onto YouTube, days before they were supposed to air. Although originally used as a research tool, Nielsen Wire has found that Americans now spend most of their time online using Social Networks or reading/writing Blogs. 

 
Is anyone surprised? Should you be working and not reading this blog online right now?

So what does this really mean for businesses? Sure, using social media means companies can advertise and generate buzz around their products (so far that YouTube video above has generated over 5 million hits), interact with consumers and engage them in their brand like never before – but what should they do when the unthinkable happens? A story breaks about their company/brand that they don’t actually want people to know about, let alone share with their friends and network…

It’s a common public relations nightmare that many companies face today, from spokespeople making inappropriate comments on social media sites (a la the Kenneth Cole debacle where he used #Cairo to promote his new spring collection on Twitter) to governments worried about social media being used to facilitate a social uprising, (like the recent events in Tunisia and Egypt has shown). Closer to home, the recent news that an Outdoor Adventure employee slaughtered 100 sled dogs in Whistler after business slumped after the 2010 Olympic Games, has spread like wildfire through social media sites and made international news. Well it made it into the Huffington Post and the NYTimes, so it’s pretty much international news. 

I won’t go into the grizzly details of the sled dog tragedy here, because it breaks my heart (and to be honest, I’ve tried to avoid reading all the articles about it, because they go into some horrific details of what happened), but needless to say, the only reason it made it into the public sphere is that the employee was so traumatized by the events that he applied for and was granted WorkSafe BC compensation on January 28^th after developing post traumatic stress disorder. These documents were obtained by local news organizations, and the rest is history. 

So what should a company do if this happens to them? I’m no PR expert, but I was always told the best thing to do after a PR nightmare (ie. a “mess up”) was to “fess up” and “dress up” the situation in order to make amends. And in today’s fast paced society, the quicker the better. 

Shortly after realizing his mistake (it took about an hour later), Kenneth Cole removed the offensive Tweet from Twitter and posted this: 

And less than a day later, this: 

Which is a link to his (slightly) more genuine apology on his Facebook page: 

“I apologize to everyone who was offended by my insensitive tweet about the situation in Egypt. I’ve dedicated my life to raising awareness about serious social issues, and in hindsight my attempt at humor regarding a nation liberating themselves against oppression was poorly timed and absolutely inappropriate.”

He (or his employees) continued to link to this apology in response to angry fans comments on his fan page, and on Twitter but this didn’t stop #boycottKennethCole and #KennethCole from trending, and from a fake  @KennethColePR twitter account from starting, similar to the @BPGlobalPR account that went viral last May. The criticism keeps coming, but at least he responded to the situation pretty quickly, and made an apology. Time will tell if this will actually translate to a decrease in Kenneth Cole's sales in the future.

Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh, Reuters

At the other end of the spectrum is what happened in Egypt, where the authoritarian government completely blocked the internet (and cell phone text messaging including Twitter) on January 25^th, only hours before large planned protests were to take place. Although this is one way to stop people from communicating and spreading negative messages on social media sites, resourceful people turned to dial-up systems, and a couple days later Google stepped up to provide a Voice-to-Twitter service. The protests continued, and 5 days after it was shut down, internet service was returned. One has to wonder how successful this was in solving President Hosni Mubarak’s ultimate PR problem.

As for Outdoor Adventures Whistler (OAW), they released a statement on January 31st, (3 days after the compensation report was released) denying they had any knowledge that the dogs were going to be killed in such a manner and refuting media reports that OAW “[instructed] the General Manager to carry out the cull in the manner described in the report”. There was no apology, and little in the terms of “fessing up” to such a horrific transgression.

As a result of the WorkSafe BC report coming to light, the BC SPCA begun a “cruelty investigation”, the RCMP opened a police file and assigned an investigator and Premier Gordon Campbell (who is still working, even though he has formally resigned) has assembled task force which will be headed by Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Terry Lake, who is also a veterinarian. In a Vancouver Sun article, Campbell said he doesn’t believe the dogsledding industry is properly regulated at present and this is something where “people would like to see more oversight.” I think that is an understatement.

Since the January 26th, Google has had a huge increase in searches for “sled dogs” and the most common terms searched are “sled dogs whistler” and “sled dogs killed”, mostly in BC and Ontario. See the graph by Google Insights for Search below.

If you are an active user of Facebook, you would also notice the Facebook groups: Boycott-Outdoor-Adventures-Whistler-for-their-slaughter-of-100-dogs and support-justice-for-the-100-slaughtered-sled-dogs-of-whistler as well as the status update:

“Because I respect the rights of animals and demand that humans treat them humanely, I am changing my facebook picture to a photo of my pet, to raise awareness of the 100 dogs that were executed in Whister, BC and in support of the SPCA who is investigating this disgusting incident - I encourage you to do the same”.

On Twitter, the @Justice4sleddog account was started, which links to their Facebook petition at the support-justice page as well the categories #sleddogs, #whistler and #animalrights being tweeted quite frequently. As you can see below in the Trends in Twitter, Tweets for #sleddog peaked on February 3^rd.



So what did OAW do next? I’m sure they wish they could shut down social media sites, to stop the spread such negative publicity, but they are not so lucky.  On February 1st they released a statement saying they had voluntarily suspended operations of Howling Dog Tours Whistler Inc. as they conducted own investigation “to determine the facts”. As of today, if you try to go to OAW Dogsled page, you will get this message:

The link goes to their Media page, which just has a copy of all their new releases, also found on the Canadian News Wire site (posted above) and includes their latest release from February 2^nd, called a Joint Statement from Robert Fawcett and Outdoor Adventures at Whistler Ltd. It states that Outdoor Adventures at Whistler Ltd. and former General Manager, Howling Dog Tours Whistler Inc. agree to the following: 

1. The number of dogs euthanized (estimating 50 dogs)
2. The condition of the dogs euthanized ("too old" or "sick" and "not adoptable")
3. The efforts made to arrange for dogs to be adopted (adoption were not as successful as hoped)
4. The instructions given concerning the manner of euthanizing the dogs (no instructions)

Not exactly a friendly message, especially if you haven’t heard about the tragedy, and genuinely wanted to research dog sledding!! I couldn’t find any statements that OAW had released besides these, and it doesn’t look like they want to talk to the media any time soon!

Because of this, social media is definitely hurting OAW's business, and will continue to do so, until the level of public outrage decreases, because either or OAW makes a better attempt to deal with this situation, or because they are torn apart by the investigations. In my opinion, OAW is handling this situation terribly, and should at minimum, make a public apology (“fess up”) and try to resolve this situation in a more accountable, and transparent way. I doubt the General Manager who is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress is up to such a task, so it should fall on the head of OAW, whomever that might be. They are not mentioned in any of the news releases. 

OAW should take a page out of Maple Leaf Foods book, as when they were at the centre of the listeriosis crisis that claimed the lives of 22 people in 2008, the firm's CEO, Michael McCain, held press conferences and posted an apology on their web site. A company spokesperson did interviews in a wide range of media and the company ran advertisements on TV  and in newspapers. Their stock prices recovered (if not completely to the same level as pre October 2008) and they have mostly recovered their image.

It seems like all the companies associated with OAW (even those who don’t want to be!) have released personal messages to the public, including Craig Daniell, Chief Executive Officer for the BC SPCA; Tom Benson, Chief Experience Officer of WildPlay Ltd. (another adventure group in Whistler); Barrett Fisher, President & CEO, Tourism Whistler and Craig Beattie, General Manager, Canadian Snowmobile and Canadian Dogsled Adventures Ltd and I’m sure the list will grow with time. So why hasn’t OAW??

Overall, I think social media is great for communicating a message, but like Facebook and Twitter didn't cause the uprising in Egypt, it can only shape the narrative (which can decrease a businesses sales or share value) and put pressure on the government and other organizations to make a change in the legislation or laws. In the end, I think social media can only help or hurt a business (or a presidency!) so much, from there it is up to the people to do something, in the real world.

Let's hope when all the reports about the dog slaughter in Whistler are released by the BCSPCA, RCMP and provincial task force, it brings about some positive changes to the dog sledding industry, where many animals meet a similar fate.

Photograph by: Claudia Kwan, Special to the Vancouver Sun

The BC SPCA conducts nearly 6,000 cruelty investigations a year and is reliant on donations from the public to continue its work. Your gift can help support investigations and bring abusers to justice. Please donate today. I do!!

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*Update - On Saturday, February 5th a group of around 70 people rallied in Whistler for a "funeral procession" to remember the slaughtered sled dogs. Some in the demonstration held signs with slogans such as "Stop Animal Cruelty, saying they want Canada to enact tougher animal cruelty laws. They brought their pet dogs along as they met near a kiosk belonging to OAW, which has since removed its sign, and added security guards.