BP Lost PR Control Before the Oil Spilled

A few weeks ago, I was interviewed on CNN by Josh Levs on one small facet of BP Oil's disaster -- online communications.

Immediately following the interview, I wanted to do a follow-up post. And I was overwhelmed by the amount of potentially relevant links as the story continued to unfold. But this AP article in Sunday's news makes me assume the point I wanted to make is still worth posting.

BP Lost PR Control Before the Oil Spilled.

Here's an excerpt from the interview to underscore my point.

LEVS: So in terms of web strategy, companies all over the world are watching this. What does a company do when it's at the center of a crisis and people are expressing outrage online? What is the strategy? What do you do?

DUGAN: The first thing they need to do is listen. Hopefully they've been doing that before the crisis actually takes place.

The other thing that BP really missed the boat on unfortunately is they weren't very active in social media prior to this. They had two of the four profiles established that you mentioned between Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, but they really had not used them.

And you can't flip a switch like that, and expect to get traction with an audience. As you can see, you know, Greenpeace has been out there participating online for years, and they have a number of folks following them. And it's very easy for them to engage with people whereas it's not for BP, because they waited until this problem happened.

LEVS: This is interesting. You mentioned before we went to air, what a lot of companies do these days,they put information out there online and they hope people will go there and find it. And you're saying what companies really need to do, it's not broadcasting, what you really need to do is engage. What's that about?

DUGAN: Correct, yes. If they had been participating prior to this, they would have established communication with a lot of folks, and would not be trying to do so for the first time. They could engage with them when this happened. It's a very polarizing situation. And people need to express their emotions. Right now, they're using social media to broadcast.
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Is the site BP's built out to address the situation robust and well-intended? Yes.

Is the search campaign they've conducted crisis/search 101 and not the devil's work? Yes.

Would a Facebook page, Twitter stream or other social sites have dramatically altered the situation? CEO Tony Hayward's actions make this a moot point. And to be clear, as the AP article notes, the PR effort won't alter the situation. The leak must be fixed.

My point is that trying to create a conversation after disaster strikes is not going to happen. It's not as if you can have a set of "dark" social media profiles and turn them on when this happens. It takes time to earn engagement. If BP had a social media presence and CEO Tony Hayward magically did not polarize the situation and make it BP against everyone...BP may have had an audience that would be helping them get the information out and help tell their factual, no-spin story. Instead it's BP against the government, activists, the media, and citizens. And that won't change anytime soon.

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Comments

[Wellons Communications]

This is a very interesting post. BP has much to learn about Public Relations.

We blogged about this topic as well and think BP should start with an apology. http://wellonscommunications.com/pr-blog/2010/06/08/the-power-of-a-good-mea-culpa/

[Jeff Domansky]

Your post is bang on Kevin. The social media listening and interaction must be in place long before a crisis strikes. The key to crisis management is to be able to answer four critical questions in your social media and mainstream communications: What happened? Are we safe? Do you know what you're doing? Can we trust you? Sadly, only the first has been answered and not so well. No amount of great PR work can erase operational problems. Appreciate your view.
Jeff

[Theresa M.]

The BP oil spill disaster is the perfect example of why companies need to be involved in social media and why it is beneficial in terms of public relations. I agree that BP should have been more actively involved with social media long before the disaster. Had they done this, they could have showed the community that they had a genuine interest in communicating with them by providing them with quality content and updated information. For them to jump into social media right after the spill in the middle of a PR crisis, just looks like a knee-jerk reaction on their part. By the time they did this, it was too late.

BP should have already been involved with social media so that they could have better and more effectivley responded to their audience in this crisis situation. Social media is also just not one-way communication. Like you said, most people are not going to go out seeking information themselves. BP needed this two-way communication that social media offers to help build trust with the community and allow the audience to feel involved.

Being involved with social media prior to the spill could have also helped BP's business in the long run. They could have monitored what the community or competitors were saying about them before as well as after the spill and explore ways to restore their brand. BP's mistakes and lack of involvement with social media can be a lesson to other companies.