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Social Media On The Farm: Crisis Management, Market Research, Education And APIs

Farmers are using the drought12 hashtag to share information about growing conditions around the U.S. (Photo via @PioneerHiBred)

With the drought of 2012 creating extreme conditions for farmers across a great swath of the U.S., farms are turning to Twitter and other social media tools as a support group to share information, gain insights and keep customers informed about changing conditions. In some cases, farmers are even beginning to use realtime technologies to connect directly with consumers and create new market efficiencies. Read →

Crisis Communications: Will Carnival Maintain Social Media Silence About The Costa Allegra, Too?

Carnival's Social Media Fail

The grounding of the Costa Concordia cruise ship last month was a public relations nightmare for Carnival Cruise Corp., and the public did not hesitate to voice their opinion on social media channels. After the first few days, Carnival made the decision to go silent on social networks. Was Carnival right or wrong to pause the conversation – and will they try a different strategy moving forward? We’re about to find out: news outlets are reporting another Costa cruise ship adrift – without power – off the Seychelles. How will the Carnival social media team handle this latest crisis? Read →

Walgreens Starts a Twitter War

Walgreens and LocalResponse partner on a check-in based campaign

If you’re going to start a Twitter war on behalf of your brand, you’d better make sure you have some key weapons in your arsenal: a simple, easy-to-understand story, a fair and just cause, and an army of fans ready to fight for you. Yesterday, Walgreens started a Twitter war with Express Scripts, a prescription drug insurer–around a fairly complicated issue. Did fans show up for the fight? Read →

Realtime Brands And Natural Disasters: Lessons From Hardee’s and Joplin

Hardee logo

When a killer tornado hit Joplin, Missouri last month, Jenna Petroff found out about it via Twitter. The Public Relations & Social Media Manager for the Hardee’s chain of restaurants had been holed up working in her St. Louis office and was off the grid to avoid interruptions until she logged onto Twitter.

What really caught her attention was a tweet searching for information about a missing young man who worked at a Hardee’s restaurant in Joplin. Seeing that and learning from Twitter and other sources about the destruction, Petroff and others at Hardee leapt into action. Read →

Airline Crisis Management: When Twitter Outpaces Corporate Communications

A Qantas Airbus A380 this week suffered engine trouble on a flight from Singapore to Sydney, Australia – one of the passengers said the engine exploded with a bang and parts dropped off – and made an emergency return to the airport. No one was injured, but Qantas suffered some reputation damage with the way [...] Read →

TWTRCON SF 2010: The Case Studies

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TWTRCON SF 2010 will be a one-day total immersion in the case studies, the practical skills and the tools that companies need to stay at the cutting edge of the real-time web.  We’ve added a lot of beefy content for the November 18 event (download a PDF of the full agenda here), but the heart [...] Read →

The Anatomy of a Social Media Nightmare Averted: Sears and Toot the Dog

Steve Farnsworth’s has published a great crisis response case study at his Digital Marketing Mercenary blog.  He tells the story of Shaunak Dave, the director, multi-channel integration for Sears Hometown Stores.  It begins like this: You are the social media strategist for Sears Hometown Stores. It’s Friday, the end of a long day, at the end of [...] Read →

Domino's Pizza Explains How it Dealt with a Crisis in the Social Media Era

Tim McIntyre, vice president of communications for Domino’s Pizza offered a firsthand crisis case study of how the company handled the infamous YouTube incident of 2009 in a recent presentation to PRSA Detroit members at Lawrence Tech University. The way the crisis was handled has been both praised and ridiculed by the public relations industry. [...] Read →

Lack of Social Media Strategy Hurts Eurostar in a Crisis

Eurostar has been forced to adapt its social media presence from marketing to crisis communications as the frustration of customers hit by the December 2009 massive delays played out visibly on Twitter and Facebook. More than 2,000 people were trapped in the Channel Tunnel on a Friday night after five trains broke down due to [...] Read →

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