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.