Crisis | Media Culpa

GM silent as Saab crisis on Facebook escalates

As I wrote yesterday, angry fans of the Swedish car brand Saab are taking out their frustration of the Saab bankruptcy on former owners GM and their Facebook page. GM has not written anything on their page since December 16 and the stream of negative comments and nasty images have not decreased. If the strategy from GM is to sit and watch while this blows over, they are running the risk of having their brand severely damaged in the process. The crisis shows no signs of having reached a pinnacle yet.

Images posted on the wall are getting worse and worse. Now, there is even an image portraying GM Chairman Daniel Akerson as Hitler.

A “Boycott General Motors” Facebook group has also been launched, currently attracting more than 100 people.

Even the General Motors page on Wikipedia is under attack.

In other words, the inactivity from GM may eventually hurt them more than if they took action. How long can GM tolerate this outrage on their Facebook page? One day, two days, a week? GM aren’t communicating almost anything about the Saab bankruptcy. One press statement was issued yesterday about the warranty programs for US Saab owners but other than that, GM are silent. So what should GM do?

The first thing they should have done a long time a go, was to have issued community guidelines or comments policy for the Facebook page. Without a policy in place, GM can’t remove anything from the page without running the risk of being accused of censorship.

Another thing GM might want to consider is actively communicating their view of the discussion, like Lowe’s Home Improvement did, after having the same kind of kerfuffle after pulling ads from the All American Muslim reality show.

We will continue to watch this crisis as it unfolds.

GM’s Facebook page attacked by angry Saab fans

On Monday, a Swedish court approved the Saab Automobile bankruptcy petition, filed by the company CEO Victor Muller, which may mean the end of the car brand Saab. Angry and sad Saab fans now blame GM for, among other things, blocking any possibility of a deal with Chinese automakers that could have saved the brand. Many of the fans have taken their frustration out on GM’s Facebook page, which currently is a mix of angry comments and images of Saab cars. A few GM supporters are also joining the discussion but they are clearly in minority.

Some examples of comments:

“So… Let me get this straight. When you guys are on the brink of Bankruptcy, you just go to the Government and have them bail you out. But when SAAB tries to save themselves you jerks screw them. Thank, you. Thank you very much. I hope you have a Merry Christmas.”

“Pathetic GM = Pathetic America”

“GM must die! Go to hell, GM!”

“I will never ever buy a car manufactured by GM.”

Also the pages of other GM brands have recieved comments from Saab fans, like the pages of Buick and GMC.

Here are some of the recent images posted on GM’s wall on Facebook:

GM hasn’t posted anything on its page for four days and seems to be staying out of the current “occupy GM” activity from Saab users. At least GM has not removed any of the negative comments, yet. We’ll see how much nastiness GM will tolerate.

Via SVT.se.

IKEA victim of Facebook hoax

A while back, more than 200,000 Swedes were fooled to join a Facebook group that promised to donate 2 SEK per fan to the victims of the Haiti earth quake. Only problem was that once the group reached the goal, it changed name and added some really outrageous content. I was somewhat amazed that all these people didn’t see through that scam because when something seems too good to be true, it often is.

The latest scam is a Facebook campaign by IKEA that promises to give you a 1,000 USD gift card if you became a fan of the Swedish company. Of course, this is not really a campaign that is really run by IKEA. If you have any knowledge of the IKEA culture I’m convinced that you would agree that IKEA would never give money away in a stunt like this.

IKEA spokesperson Mona Astra Liss says the “false offer” is not some half-baked publicity stunt by IKEA. “It’s absolutely not a publicity stunt and absolutely not endorsed by IKEA,” she says. She adds that Facebook performs closed investigations of scams, so IKEA doesn’t know who’s behind the hoax.

Tags: ikea, facebook, ikea. Ping.

Visit Denmark pulls fake YouTube video

There has been some buzz the last few days about a video titled “Danish woman seeking”, posted on YouTube featuring a woman holding her small child. In the video, the woman called Karen claims she had a one-night stand 18 months ago with a man which led to the birth of her son. She is now looking for the father and along the way in the video, she keeps mentioning how great Denmark is. The video has been viewed more than 800,000 times and generated more than 3,500 comments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HCPV3-bPXQ

Karen also has a website with photo albums and guestbooks where visitors have commented for example that they have shared her story on their blogs.

But the whole thing is fake from start to finish and is a campaign by the tourism board Visit Denmark. At least until yesterday, Visit Denmark found the campaign to be a success.

– We have increased the knowledge of Denmark as a travel destination and communicated that this is an open and free society. We wanted to place Denmark on the world map and this is a good story, says Dorte Kiilerich, Director at Visit Denmark.

Naturally, I could not agree less. Deceiving people is no better in social media than anywhere else. And as expected, the video has caused a lot of controversy in Denmark where for example the Danish Women’s Association even says the video encourages prostitution.

– We promote Denmark as a free place with space. We are happy that so many people around the world have chosen to see that. We know that there are true and false stories on YouTube, and it is that message we play with when we tell this positive, sweet and rather harmless story, Dorte Kiilerich continues.

I’m amazed that the fact that there are fake stories on YouTube is taken as an excuse to come up with yet another untrue story. So it is great to see that the video has now been taken down from YouTube. The fake website is also deleted. But the spoofs remain, thank God. Check out this “reply” video called “Swedish father seeking”.

Updated: The real video found via Kristofer.

Update 2: Visit Denmark has pulled this video too. It’s odd that they are now so eager to delete a video they recently found to be such a good idea.

Tags: denmark, youtube, youtube, danmark. Ping.

Flight 447 discussed in social media

Airlines are probably among the businesses that are best prepared to communicate in crisis situations. If something should happen to a plane for example, there is a very high risk that the lives of passengers and crew are in danger. A worst case scenario for an airline is much more devastating than for most other businesses, so they need to be well prepared.

The tragic events today with the missing Air France Flight 447 highlights how airlines communicate in a crisis. When a plane goes missing there is a great need for information and people flock online to find out as much as possible. Among the first places we look for information are in traditional media. We also go to the company web site and in this case Air France has put up brief statements on the top of the site. People also turn to Google to find information and the very first hit on Google.se is a press release from Air France informing us about which flight is missing and where to turn for more info.

However, today we also turn to social media in times of crisis. Yesterday there was a power outage in the north of Stockholm and although the two events are not comparable in any way, it was interesting to see how the discussion started immediately on Twitter. I tweeted as soon as the lights went out and got responses from others in the neighbourhood. Soon someone came up with the hashtag #sthlmblackout and we quickly got a better understanding of the geographic scope of the blackout. Traditional media reported much later about the event that left 100,000 households without electricity for several hours.

In the same way people turn to Twitter to find information about flight 447 and to discuss the catastrophic indicent. Earlier today, “Atlantic” was one of the most discussed topics on Twitter and then “Air France” has been top five for most of the day. Thousands of tweets have also been tagged #AF447. A dedicated Wikipedia page for flight 447 has also been established and is continuously updated throughout the day.

I noticed the story first on Twitter when a person I follow retweeted the news from the account Breaking News which has more than 470,000 followers. Breaking News describes itself as “Your most credible Twitter news source. First in online breaking news!”. As more and more people join Twitter it will become an increasingly important channel for businesses in crisis situations. Air France doesn’t use the account http://twitter.com/airfrance and it is not even clear if the company is in possesion of the account. In the near future, Twitter will have to become an integral part of any company crisis plan because that is where many discuss current topics.

Related story in Swedish about Com hem and Twitter.

Update: Air France is a subsidiary of Air France-KLM Group, which many people may not be aware of. KLM has a Twitter account at www.twitter.com/KLM with four tweets about the tragedy. If I was responsible for this account, I would definitely change the background image which currently includes an image of a smiling young woman.

Tags: air+france, twitter, af447, twitter, sociala medier, air france, twitter, digital pr. Ping.

Social media in the Hudson River plane crash

The plane crash in the Hudson River in New York yesterday, is front page news also here in Sweden. It’s a fascinating story with a happy ending for the 155 people onboard thanks to a heroic performance by the pilot and his crew. And once more we see the power in social media when it comes to reporting breaking news in real time. My colleague Erin Byrne has a good description about how she heard the news first via Twitter.

“I first learned of the story via a “newsbreak” type alert from Twitter to my mobile phone.”

Among the very first reports was a Twitter post by Janis Krums from Sarasota, Florida, who was on a ferry that arrived on the scene just a few minutes after the plane had crashed into the freezing water. People were standing on the wings waiting to be rescued when Krums posted a note via TwitPic: “http://twitpic.com/135xa – There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.” The photo he took from his iPhone was probably the first to be posted online and it has already been viewed more than 90,000 times on TwitPic alone.

Only thirty-four minutes after Krums had posted his photo online he was interviewed live on TV by MSNBC (video here). Other traditional media also reached out via social media to get hold of eyewitness stories. The Charlotte Observer first sent a news alert via Twitter and then posted several requests on Twitter.

BREAKING: US Airways Flt.1549, bound for Charlotte, has crashed into the Hudson River in New York City. Updates at www.charlotteobserver.com

If anybody sees passengers or witnesses on crashed jet twittering, pls DM to Observer

we’re looking for stringers with a journalism background for tonight in suburban New Jersey. DM to the Observer

we’re looking for stringers with a journalism background for tonight in suburban New Jersey. DM to the Observer #planecrash

#flight1549 Contact the Observer if you were on the plane – we’d love to tell your story. DM this address

#Hudson #USAirways Contact the Observer if you were on the plane – we’d love to tell your story!

The pilot Sully Sullenberger already has 22 fan groups on Facebook and there is even a Swedish one. Well deserved.

Update: Here is a map of Flight 1549 flight path.

Tags: twitter, hudson river, plane crash, flygkrash, usa, twitter. Ping.