Social Media Hijacking

Social media can be a double-edged sword for marketers. On the social media, It is easy to communicate with various kinds of people and there is no constraints of time or space to reach them. However, because of this openness, it is barely able to anticipate all situations which is going to happen in the future. Things can go the other way around contrary to our intent. Therefore, Crisis management on the Social channels is really important for social marketers.

One of the crisis situation is media hijacking. 'Media Hijacking' means that consumers put pressure on the business by spreading negative issues which is different from the one originally intended. It often happens on the Earned-media, such as YouTube, SNS, and Blog, because consumer's opinion and word-of-mouth play a key role on these media.

Here are some examples about media hijacking.

1. Hyundai Motors

Hyundai Motors uploaded an event which encouraged people to make a poem with their product name 'Genesis'. When they planned this social event, Hyundai intended to share many positive poems about their product and brand with many users on SNS.

However, most of the participants made poems including very negative issues about Hyundai motors and their product. Because this situation was not expected to occur, they suddenly deleted their post and user's comments. And then, they just uploaded noticing post saying who the winners are. People started to complain on this post while asking where the previous event post and user's comment. By getting rid of this event, I think Hyundai actually reinforced consumer's negative perception. In order to overcome this crisis, I think it would be better to open their Facebook brand page to consumers to share their opinion towards hyundai freely and communicate with them with sincerity.

2. McDonald

Same as Hyundai, McDonald actually went through a lot of trouble because of their use of Hashtag on Twitter. Contrary to the meaningful result of #MeetTheFarmers Campaign, #McDStories thoroughly failed. Actually, they wanted to collect positive stories about McDonald especially they intended to build up eco-friendly brand image, but a lot of hijacked hashtag appeared.

Because this hashtag, #McDStories, is very vague and abstract, it could be accepted that it was Ok to say anything about McDonald, whether it is positive or negative. Although it was sure that there was a possibility to produce bad issues about their brand, they had not expected that an apposite result would be produced.

How about making the hashtag more concrete? For example, #McDwithFamily which implies that McDonald is a good place to enjoy your time with your family, can be a good one. By making people share their family's happy moments with McDonald, they can prevent from hijacking and collect better and more detailed stories.

Also, this situation was caused because of the difference between the preferences and expectations of consumers and the image which the brand wanted to appeal. From this case, we can see that McDonald pursued Eco-friendly brand image, while consumers consider McDonald as a fast food restaurant.

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