8 reasons why BP doesn’t need to give a f**k about social media

28 June 2010 View Comments

So now England are out of the world cup I am back to blogging, hello WordPress, it’s been a while.

Now BP are in trouble at the moment, oil is still spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, their Chief Executive (Tony Hayward) has been grilled by Congress, their share price has fallen by over 50% in the last 3 months and, well, everyone hates them!

Among those lining up to criticise are the social media gurus, pundits and experts who give some interesting advice on how BP should be using social to“attempt to humanize BP” or how it is “not easy to find their social presences on BP.com”. Meanwhile those using the monitoring tools are lining up to give us some valuable insight… namely BP isn’t popular – I don’t think the guys at BP need Sysomos MAP to work that one out! Hell, this even made it into the NY Times which did find some nice samples of content, namely “You can rest assured I will walk before I buy a gallon of your gasoline”. Now TechCrunch is pointing out that “social media has become the message” by discussing @BPglobalPR – a funny parody account.

But really, all the openness, all the humanization of the brand with flip cams (!?)isn’t going to make a difference, here is why:

BP’s share price has fallen due to a fear of exposure from large institutional investors who are concerned about how much MONEY BP will lose as a result of the spill and clean up / compensation that will follow
You can’t boycott BP and if you do you don’t hurt them – they are a B2B business that sell oil to refineries who refine oil and sell it to pretty much everyone from petrol providers to airlines to guys who make water bottles and other plastic, if you boycott their petrol stations you just hurt the local franchise owner
BP has always had an awful rep, they’re an oil company for God sake!
But maybe we can make a difference to the politicians, they will listen and then make BP pay, well maybe but Obama is keen to decrease America’s dependency on oil from the middle east, deep water drilling is the only option, he might improve safety standards and this will cost BP some money but no amount of social engagement or social media effort from BP will change that – people died, tonnes of oil was spilt
To engage and use social would be contrived and false, BP are bad, we know their bad, they represent everything most people hate about modern business and society, and so they are an easy scapegoat – so whatever they do they will get stick from us lot
What the hell would they do with social media anyway? Talk openly to people about how thousands of gallons of oil are destroying the gulf?
THE BIG ONE: BP’s customers (refineries) and investors (institutions) are not influenced in their decisions by social media – they are influenced by profit – end of.
Openness and social engagement with the public won’t make a blind bit of difference to their revenues, but will cost them money – why bother, the only way they will recover their social rep is by stopping the leak

So what should BP do? Well, fix the leak and don’t waste your time and money on contrived and useless “social efforts” like YouTube videos of Tony Hayward or anything else. Just put the info out there, on your website, make it really easy to find, and get on with your business. Use the usual channels that your customers and investors use to communicate with them and let the lobbyists do the job in Washington for you.

So am I wrong? Let me know…

Guest post by Tom Messett

Richard Tricker

All very well, but screw the share price. If people really care then where are there no picket lines at petrol stations?
pili barrio

Very good post. There is no social media strategy that can really turn BP into the good guys. Only sorting out the mess of the spilt will do them some good. I wonder if they even care about their reputation when as you said, they don't sell their oil directly to consumers.
Andrew

I think you'll find the BP do sell directly to consumers, both through their forecourts and their retails brands.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP#BP_corporate_and_retail_brands
@barryfurby

clearly crisis management shouldn't be to turn off all channels of communication inc social media, and although they cant come of out this smelling of roses they could easily demonstrate exactly what they are doing to help the situation .
Andrew

While I agree in principle that an involved social media campaign won't have a blind bit of difference on their share price directly I think the overall affect it *could* have on the public image in the aftermath of this incident shouldn't be underestimated.

To say that they don't care about the fact that they have an overall bad reputation being an oil company is untrue. Back in 2000 they went through an extensive re-brand replacing the shield with a sunburst image and emphasising their investments in green technology. Whether or not this was with serious intentions or was just lipstick on a pig is no matter, there spent £4.5 million on the new logo alone and spent $100 million (src: http://bit.ly/adillQ - http://bit.ly/9xAOSD - http://bit.ly/9yyU8V ) over the following year supporting the brand change. If they felt a re-brand and the resulting change in public perception would have had no affect on their share price I can't imagine they would have bothered, or at least not spent so much on it.

I think the opportunity here is for them to use social media to aid with the direct recover effort in communities where real people and real businesses have been badly hit. They can use social media to let these people know what is being done day to day to get the oil off their beaches and get there customers returning. They could do this with Twitter, with videos and with good old fashioned letters and town hall meetings (there are doing a lot of this already to be fair but its not the worlds easiest site to use). Most simply they could attach this all to a Google Map so people can see what is being done.

An immediate plus for BP is they would be able to control some of the information that goes to press. If there have detailed information / videos and photos of the cleanup work they are doing the press will be less reliant on this material coming from other sources that might have a negative bias against BP. If BP can push the press to more positive reporting on the cleanup this will certainly have an affect on their share price.

Longer term they could use this as a footing for a marketing campaign that differentiates them from other oil companies as one that clears up after its mess and cares about its customers. This might be a little 'blue sky' but with more public focus from the public on the moral and environmental standing of the companies they buy from there is a need for at least one oil company to step out and take that lead.

Be interesting to hear thoughts on the contrary.

Andrew Davison - Ziggurat Brands (www.zigguratbrands.com)
Follow me: http://www.twitter.com/AndrewJDavison
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