#HK SOCIAL MEDIA GIRL FIRED FULL#
“Why anyone would pay near to full price or full price sometimes plus postage for something second hand is crazy,” wrote Laura Tenison. Its popularity was clearly seen as an irritant by the company itself, and culminated in its founder posting a late-night message on the page questioning why users would want to pay near full price for her company’s products. One such group, JoJo Maman Bebe Pre-Loved Buy and Sell, has more than 20,000 members. Its premium prices have led to a number of second-hand selling groups being established on social media. What happened: JoJo Maman Bebe is a UK-based baby clothes retailer targeted at mothers with large disposable incomes. READ MORE: 8 ways to respond to a social media crisis A social media crisis handled with honesty and speed: JoJo Maman Bebe If not, you risk a full-scale wildfire – which will be much harder to extinguish and could irreparably damage your brand. Deleting their page was akin to an ostrich sticking its head in the sand with a pride of lions closing in.īe open and contrite from the outset, try to take the issue out of the public domain, and make sure your response is sufficient to throw a blanket over the fire. But inexplicably they then inflamed the situation by insisting they were not at fault and censoring negative comments rather than engaging with an angered online populous. No matter how certain you are that the customer was at fault, denials, counter claims and buck passing are the social media equivalent of throwing a grenade into your own side’s trenches.Ĭarolina Girls initially did the right thing by publicly apologising and reaching out to the aggrieved party privately.
What we can learn: The old adage about the customer always being right is as true today as it always has been. Stephanie Davis insisted she had attempted to set up a meeting with Rene Syler and her daughter, but the horse had already bolted and the interview simply succeeded in attracting more online scorn. The owner of the chain brought further attention to the unfortunate saga by speaking to a news channel. To compound their mishandling of the situation, Carolina Girls ended up deleting their entire Facebook profile. The store’s page was bombarded with critical comments, many of which were deleted by the page admin. The post inevitably poked a hornets’ nest that had begun to settle down. But the store later posted a further Facebook message claiming an investigation had unearthed no evidence of any such comment being made, pinning the blame on ‘young shoppers’ in the store at the time. Left there, the fire would have been extinguished and everyone could have moved on. The post went viral, which prompted an appropriately contrite response from Carolina Girls on their Facebook page. For context, Casey is black.Ĭasey’s mother Rene (a successful blogger) shared the experience on her Facebook page.
According to Casey, as soon as she walked through the doorway a saleswoman looked up and allegedly said “Shoplifter” to one of her colleagues. What happened: It all started when a teenage girl named Casey Syler decided to visit a fashion store in South Carolina to shop for a new wallet. How not to handle a social media crisis: Carolina Girls NB: This article was originally published in 2013, but has been updated to include examples from 2017 and the very recent past. In most cases the mistake was completely avoidable, and indeed would have been with a little more care and attention. Here we present a number of examples where brands have shot themselves in the foot. It is not uncommon for a large company to have to deal with a social media crisis and some handle them better than others.