ABSTRACT
High-profile organizational crises such as British Petroleum's (BP's) Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 have shown the importance of social media in spreading (mis)information about crises. For example, BP shared updates and encouraged open dialogue through creation of dedicated Web and Facebook pages, and Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube sites, allowing publics to post uncensored messages about BP's response. Other publics responded by sharing information on their personal and organizational pages and created their own sites to share information about BP, such as a parody Twitter account with false information and a website dedicated for complaints. BP was simultaneously praised for its social media response and criticized for its public relations efforts. While the BP oil spill is a prominent example, other recent examples also illustrate the potential for social media to spread information that may lead to or further organizational crises, including:
viral videos and photos of employee offenses, such as food tampering at restaurants including Dominos (2009), Burger King (2012, 2013), KFC (2013), Taco Bell (2012, 2013), Wendy's (2013), and others;
viral YouTube videos of poor customer service, such as a FedEx delivery person throwing a fragile package over a fence instead of delivering to the door (2013); and
Twitter campaigns gone wrong, such as McDonald's Twitter hashtag designed to share positive stories (#McDStories) that resulted in a backlash of negative stories about visits to McDonald's (2012).
