crisis averted: starbucks avoids social media meltdown in Atlanta hoax

MrriuiantNas

crisis averted: starbucks avoids social mediameltdown in Atlanta hoax

Quick oction kept froudulent cloims of tainted food from gettingout of control

Bret Thorn I Jan 11, 2018

Just as starbucks was preparing the nationwide launch of its light-roast Blonde Espresso , the seattle-based coffee chain had to dodamage control over a hoax about one of its Atlanta ]ocations.

htp://www.nm.com/prinU35 1 308

MARKETING

I of 6lll2l20l8,1l:27 AM

,

I

t-

I

crisis averted: starbucks avoids social media meltdown in Atlanta hoax

A fraudulent post by someone claiming to be a starbucks employeenamed Shanell Rivers emerged. she claimed to be tainting whitepeople's orders at the coffee house. The post quickly spread viaTwitter on sunday and starbucks closed the restaurant.

on Monday morning starbucks reopened the restaurant andresponded: "The post is false. starbucks does not have a partner(employee) by the name Shanell Rivers.,,

Archieron @ArchieronFOH 7 Jan@Starbucks Any comments or concerns with this? .pic.twitter.com/RjWzu rpWAw

Starbucks Coffee@Starbucks

These posts are completely false. starbucks does not have apartner (employee) by the name shanell Rivers. we are workingwith local authorities.

3:34 PM - Jan 8, 2018

4

over the nefi couple of days much of starbucks' Twitter feed wasrepetition of that response, often with the additional comment thatthey were working with authorities to determine how the fraudulentpost was made, as they responded to concerned and/or disgustedpeople on social media.

By Thursday starbucks' Twitter feed had returned to normal,responding to fans and promoting the new espresso. The crisis,apparently, has been contained.

crisis communications expert Brad Ritter of Los Angeles company

http ://www.nrn.com/print/3 5 I 3 08

2of6l/12/2018,11:27 AM

crisis averted: Starbucks avoids social media meltdown in Atlanta hoax

Ritter Communications said the key to managing situations like that isthe three 'c's: control, concern and communication.

That means communicating that you're handling the situation, thatyou're concerned about the welfare of your customers and that you,reworking with the proper authorities or anyone else who can helpaddress the problem.

"And it's not just saying that, it's demonstrating that,,,he said.

Ideally, that expression of the three 'c's should be immediate, Rittersaid, even if it's something as simple as "we're aware of a potentialproblem, and we're working diligently to rearn more. we will shareinformation as we get it."

He added that with social media outbreaks like the Starbucks one, it,sa good strategy to try to contain it to one form of social media.

"If it starts on Twitter, you try to contain it to Twitter,,,he said.

The sooner you can say something, even if it's general, the better, hesaid.

"There are these people who have this incessant need to hit the'share,button," he said. "If you don't throw some water on the .share,button

right away, you're going to be in trouble.,,

Dan Bejmuk, cEo and co-founder of Dreambox creations in LosAngeles, which handles the social media for many restaurant brands,said the Starbucks situation was "an extreme example of whycompanies that spend so much time developing their brands really

http://www.nrn.com/print/35 I 308

3 of 61ll2l2018,ll:27 AM

crisis averted: Starbucks avoids social media meltdown in Atlanta hoax

find it so important to have real-time reputation management ondigital."

He said these crises can break so fast that social media should bemonitored at all times during business hours, for national brandspossibly starting at breakfast on the East Coast and ending at the closeof business in Hawaii, or in the case of global brands like Starbucks,24/7.

He said that although software can examine sentiment and"automatically escalate certain trending topics that may be relevant tothe brand," crises need the sort ofjudgment "that as of right now onlya human can provide."

And humans who are empowered to act, he added. A crisismanagement plan should be in place, he said, "so that if there issomething that starts to get out of hand and it's outside of businesshours, making sure that... the chief marketing officer, the cEo orother c-level executives as needed can be looped in to be able to makevery quick decisions that can have long-lasting implications for thebrand."

Bejmuk noted that the first tweet he saw about the Starbucks situationwas at 4pm on sunday, and he saw a starbucks response at 10 a.m.the next day.

He said it likely took a while for Starbucks to determine that the postwas, in fact, fraudulent.

"This was a screenshot of a tweet from a Facebook post,,, he said,noting that not everyone uses their government name on Facebook, so

http://www nm.com/print/3 5 I 308

4of6111212018, L1:27 AM

crisis averted: Starbucks avoids social media meltdown in Atlanta hoax

starbucks would have to go over its employee lists, possibly for everystore in Atlanta since the location wasn't specified.

He said he saw the r8-hour gap in response as a reasonable amount tomake sure that they were accurate.

"If they were going to respond sooner and say, ,H.y, we,re looking into

this,'that's certainly an opportunity as well. I think that that probablycould have happened earlier."

Ritter said excessive caution can be a problem in these situations.

"This is often where brands get into trouble," he said. ..They don,thave information, they don't have the facts, they don,t know what,sgoing on, therefore they don't say or do anything, and it,s a fire thatgets out of control."

However, he added, make sure that whatever you say, no matter howgeneral, that it's accurate.

"Any misinformation that has to be corrected after the fact is verydamaging to the brand's reputation,,,he said.

Bejmuk said Starbucks did the right thing by closing the store.

"Especially when you have anything that's a threat to guests oremployees, that's the deal breaker," he said. .,That,s

the scenario of,'All right, we need to get to the bottom of this before we put anyone injeopardy'."

Contact Bret Thorn at bret.thorn@knect365.com

http://www.nrn.com/print/3 5 I 308

5of61ll2l2}l8,1l:27 AM

crisis averted: Starbucks avoids social media meltdown in Atlanta hoax

Follow him on TWitter: @foodwriterdiary

Source URL: http://www.nrn.com/marketing/crisis-averted-starbucks-avoids-social-media-meltdown-atlanta-hoax

http ://wwwnrn.com/print/3 5 I 308

6of6lll2l20l8,11:27 AM