A Social media crises can happen for a variety of reasons. From accidental Facebook posts to epic marketing campaign fails.
Those campaigns become memorable definitely not for their effectiveness, but for the lack of common sense involved in making them.
Such campaigns don’t only fail to attract the attention of the target user or business, they offend viewers, generate anger, lose consumer trust and brand credibility.
According to an MTV report, it’s been a while since Sayfco Holding, a private Lebanese company has been having internal issues and problems. However, just recently, their Facebook Page has been heavily utilized as a tool to expose their dirty laundry in public.
A miscalculated move that has damaged the brand’s reputation maybe to a point of being “unrepairable”.
If the objective of the campaign is being transparent with the public to what’s happening, then Sayfco Holding has failed miserably. All you have to do is skim through the comments of their Facebook posts.
The public’s response to the posts only generated a wave of anger from users who’ve invested their money in the residential projects in question and didn’t receive any clarification regarding that matter.
The posts shared on Sayfco’s Facebook page addressed an internal corporate problem openly. Instead of showing care about its customers they redirected the responsibility to someone else.
What is guaranteed is that this social media stunt “sayfco scandal” has hit the once leading construction company in Lebanon.
Now What? How to handle the Social Media Crisis.
The question remains how badly has this stunt hurt Sayfco?
If the public’s response is that a lot of people got hurt, they were hurt badly, and the people who were hurt didn’t get support, then the potential damage to the brand is relatively big.
Sayfco News Update:
The page admins removed all old posts including the bankrupt banner, their board members pictures and everything else as if the Sayfco Holding scandal never happened.
The infographic gives a quick view of social media statistics during the Lebanese parliamentary election, 2018. The importance of social media for election campaigning has received a lot of attention recently. Social media monitoring can provide key insights from users who are actively talking about the election in Lebanon and abroad.
This is the first Lebanese election in the social media age – What are the Lebanese saying on social media? and who is winning the Lebanese Election battle on social media?
According to users on social media:
- The top corrupt political party/Politician in Lebanon: نبيه بري Nabih Berry / Haraket Amal حركة أمل
- The political party with the worst electoral alliances: Tayyar Watani Hor التيار الوطني الحر
- The least corrupt political party/Politician in Lebanon: سمير جعجع Samir Geagea / Lebanese Forces القوات اللبنانية
- The political party/politician with major accomplishments: جبران باسيل Gebran Bassil / Tayyar Watani Hor التيار الوطني الحر & Future Movement تيار المستقبل / Saad Hariri سعد الحريري
- The political party with best electoral alliances: Haraket Amal حركة أمل & Hezbollah حزب الله
- The politician using mostly sectarian speech: جبران باسيل Gebran Bassil
- The politician most negatively affected by his past: سمير جعجع Samir Geagea
- The political party with the best electoral program: Koullouna watani
- The politician who is mostly accused of talking nonsense: سامي الجميل Kataeb الكتائب
- The politician using least sectarian speech: تيمور جنبلاط Teymour Joumblat
Check out the infographic below for a full summary of the analysis.
Data source: Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums, Instagram, Comments, Tumblr, Reddit, Google+.
Date: 25/02/2018 – 25/04/2018
Below is a list of major topics and events that shaped (positive & negative effects) the results of the analysis based on the data collected from users:
- Saudi Oger
- CEDRE Conference
- Candidate Sarkis Sarkis
- رفيق الحريري
- إيران
- داتا المغتربين
- وليد جنبلاط
- Nouhad Machnouk “الأوباش” Video
- توريث
- حقوق المسيحية
- التحالف الشيعي
- إسرائيل
- العهد
- إقتراع المغتربين
- Hariri Selfie App
- بلطجي
- حرب سورية
- التوطين
- سلاح حزب الله
- كلام الناس
- ملف بواخر الكهرباء
- مجرم حرب
- المصالحة
- موازنة
- دق الجرس
- تحالف الجماعة الاسلامية
- علي الأمين
The analysis focused on the hashtags of the electoral slogan of each party during the past two months, the most influential candidate, and the candidates party. The data & insights of this infograph have been sourced from Crimson Hexagon.
So can social media be used to predict election results? There has been couple apps and surveys to poll voters prior to the parliamentary elections yet the analysis of social media did a better job at predicting Trump’s win than the polls. Yet, there is no conclusive proof that social media is associated with election votes and the probability of success. Besides the widespread use of fake social media profiles and bots on all social networks.
Crimson Hexagon is a platform that uses artificial intelligence to analyze consumer insights on social media and other online data sources. The platform is used by Netflix, amazon, BBC….
Feel free to use the data & infographic above but make sure to link back to this article.
Vero is the hot new social media app that has been downloaded almost 1 million times in 24 hours. The app is founded by the Lebanese Ayman Hariri, the son of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri
So what is Vero? Its a social media app similar to Instagram and Facebook and what makes it different is that you will have to pay a subscription but it’s AD-FREE.
Users have reported the ambiguity of the privacy policies and terms of service. However the app has released a tweet with an update regarding this issue. Well in Lebanon, online privacy rules and regulations aren’t applied, not even by the government.
It has come to our attention that some of the language in our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy has caused some confusion.
We have updated both to clarify.We appreciate your trust!
— Vero (@verotruesocial) February 23, 2018
I tried the app and it’s a bit slow and users on twitter have been reporting technical issues but that is only expected as Vero hits the number one app of the social media category of the app store.
The Vero app has been glitchy and pointless so far 👍🏼
— Laura Lee (@Laura88Lee) February 28, 2018
Others have called for the apps deletion after finding that Hariri was involved in Oger, a construction company in Saudi Arabia that didn’t pay its migrant workers from countries including India, Pakistan, and the Philippines for over eight months. The hashtag #DeleteVero is taking over the internet. Mashable just published an article on how to delete Vero.
ICYMI the founder and CEO of Vero has an extremely dubious past and failed to pay at least 31,000 workers while running his last company into bankruptcy #DeleteVero https://t.co/WfIPq72hMa
— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) February 28, 2018
Vero promises smarter connecting – Everything’s not for everyone, so we’ve made picking your audience completely intuitive for each post.
The subscription price has not been released yet but if you are among the first million users, the app is free!
It is no hidden fact that social media around the world has played a significant role in driving global revolutions and the effect of social media in Lebanon is yet to be discovered. There has been numerous cases, such as the case in the Arab uprising and raising public awareness to multiple causes including the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that took the world by storm or the Gangam Style phenomena that went viral and became the first youtube video to reach two billion views.
Lebanon, a country of just 4.5 million people, bearing almost 1.5 million Syrian refugees and struggling with it’s own internal political conflicts has been listed among the 10 least efficient governments in the world according to the annual report of The World Economic Forum’s annual Global Competitiveness Report. Taking the above into account, it is no wonder that crime rates are increasing in the absence of authority and the spread of corruption in the judiciary, security forces and in other state institutions.
2015, a bloody year in Lebanon marked by a rapid increase in the number of theft, domestic violence and murders.
The death of Georges al Reef sparked the outrage of Lebanese on different social media platforms pushing government officials and law enforcement to take immediate actions. The murderer, backed by a politician, had previous criminal cases filed against him and still walked free every time. The corruption surrounding the expected results of this murder case was taken on social media to demand justice.
The following results summarize the community reaction on both Facebook and Twitter
Twitter:
In no time, people started using #JusticeForGeorges and other related hashtags (#RestInPeaceGeorges, #JungleLand, and #الإعدام_لقاتل_جورج_الريف) in their tweets to condemn the murder, to demand justice, criticize the country’s security status and also to help fund a campaign using #Indiegogo to support George’s Family.
The above trending hashtags gained traction attracting major public attention, engaging social conversations and multiple responses from influencers and the civil society. Below is a summary of the data generated from the hashtag: #JusticeForGeorge
The hashtag reached around 5 Million twitter users in 7 days!
Facebook:
The hashtag quickly spread also on Facebook, reaching around 19 Million users.
Blogs:
Lebanese blogs such as Blog Baladi, Gino’s Blog, A Separate State of Mind… also took part in the public debate by publishing articles commenting on the incident and reflecting the outrage of the local community.
Would the arrest take place this fast if the case hasn’t sparked such a public outrage?
Any case that becomes a subject of public interest, offline traditional media; TV stations, radios and newspapers will no longer able to hide or ignore a side of the story on the contrary most will be driven to push for governmental action in response to public’s demand for transparency and accountability thus people are having the power to shape media content and are no longer accepting whatever news they are being exposed to.
Social media has proved to be an effective wake-up tool and has helped develop community engagement but the effect of social media in Lebanon is hugely outstanding in the presence of governmental corruption in most of its public sectors and the need for public intervention. There is no doubt that Social Media is functioning as a catalyst for change but the question remains whether this movement can be translated to street action or not?
The success of an event is based on a measurement strategy that states the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to be considered. There are multiple types of KPIs such as (Sales KPIs, Marketing KPIs, Social Media KPIs…). Organizations identify and track different KPIs depending on its objectives and what it wishes to achieve from an event.
The following list includes 3 social media KPIs to measure the success of an event during its different stages.
Social Media KPIs
To ensure the proper reach of the media campaign aligned with an upcoming event, an organization should use the metrics below to achieve maximum exposure, develop customer engagement, enforce brand image, reach target audience and achieve desired action such as registrations, attendance and lead generation.
1- Exposure & Distribution, 2- Engagement & Interaction, 3- Influence & Action
Exposure and Distribution:
Before launching an event, an organization should make sure it’s available on all social networking sites to connect with its target audience and that all channels are updated regularly with the upcoming event details;
Contact information (email & phone number)
Info (place, time & date)
Details (event promo: images & videos)
Prices (ticket details & point of purchase)
Speakers (bio & links to profile)
Social sharing (social media & email)
The ease of access to event details on social media should reflect a growth in exposure on all channels and its distribution among communities and groups; number of fans on Facebook, followers on twitter, connections on LinkedIn, subscribers on YouTube and whether the event is being circulated on social media, mentioned on other platforms and from what sources.
Engagement and Interaction:
Next step requires developing reach and increasing engagement on social media to attain maximum publicity, in order to achieve that a custom landing page should be prepared for those who are interested in the event and are looking for more detailed info. The landing page should be clear, include an attractive image and more text content including all the above and the following info:
Schedule (Breaks, Workshops, Panels)
Partners (Media & Sponsors)
Unique Hashtag (To build engagement during the event)
Outcome (Certificate…)
An event is the best opportunity to achieve maximum exposure on social media, thus during an event the organization should provide an incentive for its target audience to interact. This can be done through:
Connecting with users on social networks and sharing their feedback, comments and conversations by retweeting their content and images.
Another way is to gamify tweeting during event by organizing a simple contest or by displaying the tweet stream on screens in the event.
Engaging with influencers is another incentive, influencers are people your target audience trust and have great presence online and make it easier to spread the message.
Building a photo wall is also an interesting method to encourage attendees to take pictures and share on social media.
Influence & Action:
This is an important indicator to evaluate the success of an event and how well the social media campaign and marketing efforts resonate with the audience. Although there is no universal method to measure an event impact on social media and no approach can be applied to all yet evaluating the different actions taken such as the number of retweets, mentions, comments, shares, reviews, video views, live stream/site visits, registrations, and number of leads/sales will help you understand the perception and attitude of customers.
You can use the following FREE tools to measure the above:
TweetReach.com: Add the hashtag used during the event and you will be able to see the estimated reach, exposure, contributors, tweets timeline and activity.
Twittercounter.com: Gives you twitter statistics (graph & numbers) over a custom period of time, number of tweets, followers and following.
Unionmetrics.com: Gives you instagram insights, top fans, best time to post, post engagement.
Mention.com: Create an alert for your organization name or the hashtag used during the event. Mention.com will scan different sources, social media or web and send you email alerts.
In addition to the above, there are several effective tools to measure event return on investment which should be relevant to the goals set prior to the launch of any event. Setting clear measurements will help generate more value and RIO.