Honestly, I’m at a loss for words regarding the epic social media meltdown of Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro. I’m still processing the whole situation and attempting not to have a knee-jerk reaction since I feel like I don’t have all the facts. In case you’ve missed it, some quick back story on this. Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro was featured on Gordon Ramsey’s TV show, Kitchen Nightmares, where he goes into to save failing restaurants on the request of the owners. He is known for being an intense person and very direct. Let’s just say it didn’t go very well for the owners of Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro as seen below:
In all fairness, I don’t what happened off camera and how the footage was edited so I’m trying to keep my assumptions to the minium. That said, what was shown would cause viewers to be upset. And would cause many to take to social media platforms to express their outrage, which any people did. And that’s where the social media meltdown started after the owners took to their Facebook Page after the episode aired to response to user comments. The situation quickly spinned out of control.
Here are some examples of posts:
Then this most interesting post today and frankly not very convincing to me (I’d like to be proved wrong though so please do):
So on the surface, there were many don’ts in crisis communications in this situation. Instead of focusing on them, let’s focus on how your organization can avoid or at least manage this type of meltdown. Some quick tips:
– Be fully present on Facebook Page by actually interacting with your community.
– Monitor your Facebook Page.
– Have community guidelines in place and posted then enforce them when needed.
– Be mindful of tone when responding.
– Listen and understand what the poster wants then respond to it if warranted.
Remember how you react to unflattering comments will be how you will be remembered.
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I really haven’t followed this except for reading your post here and some comments by experts in a certain Facebook group so take this with a grain of salt. But you asked…
What little I was willing to watch of the video would lead me to believe it is possible these owners might react that way, but I could be very wrong. Everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt. If it is really important then someone is going to verify the response that they were hacked.
You and I both know that if someone is determined to find out the truth it will come out. Given how high profile this seems to have been I would bet that someone will dig in to disprove it if they can.
I’m not sure how can prove you were hacked – probably something we should learn to do. It would be easy to find out if it really was reported to law enforcement. If they did report it and LE investigates there will be a whole new set of problems if they’ve actually filed a false police report. That would take this to an entirely different level.
Your tips list is spot on, whether they were hacked or not. If they weren’t hacked and a PR firm recommended lying about it as recovery strategy that’s stupid and wrong. They will get caught.
If it is a publicity stunt, which is pretty much what I’d call getting on the show when they really didn’t want advice, then I guess you take your chances with how it plays out. Do they get more diners or do people avoid them like the plague?
True or false on any of this I’d say it is a high risk approach that, even if they were hacked, is unlikely to yield positive results. If they didn’t file a report with LE or filed a false report then this is only going to worse. If a PR consultant was involved in either creating the stunt or advocating an untrue position then shame on them and I hope they get egg on their face too.
Organizations are defined more by their actions than their words. I did see one other post that had a former employee talking about what it was like working there – don’t tell her when people send food back, management keeps the tips. If the restaurant was in my town I’d never go there – even if they had great food.
It isn’t about spin. It is about reality. For better or worse my prediction would be that this is so bad the business does not survive. And, again, if they’d been following your list of tips this could have been avoided either way.
Then there is always one of my favorite truisms: You can’t fix stupid.
Spot on Rick, your favorite truism of you can’t fix stupid is so very true here. This whole situation is a mess and in many ways a “true” crisis. Their business will be affected by the outcome of the TV show and then their rants on Facebook. Will they stay in business? No idea. They need more than good PR to fix their issues. Cheers for stopping in Rick, appreciate it greatly.