Tag Archives: pizza

PizzaHut Twintern: Wise or Otherwise ?

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Twitterverse is again abuzz with news about another Pizza maker but luckily this time it’s not for some negative news. The brand in question here is PizzaHut and the news is that PizzaHut has posted for an opening on their site for a Twintern(wondering how they came up with that word).

pizzahut_site

As per the requirements posted by the company, the Twintern would be closely working with PR team and would be responsible for maintaining and growing their social media presence, monitoring social media tools and doing PR outreach for the company. While most people(read Twitterers) are visibly excited about this piece of news there’s more to it than “Oh, somebody’s getting paid for Tweeting  and Facebooking, that’s uber cool”.

David Teicher raises some valid concerns while trying to figure out the motive behind this move. This move clearly has to be motivated by the recent Domino’s Debacle but is reacting in this way a wise thing to do ?  Few things that immediately come to one’s mind

1) What’s the strategy behind this move ?
Social Media is not just about tools. Jumping straight to a tool without having a clearly formulated strategy is a big NO.

2) Is it really right putting a college student on the drivers seat ?
Making him/her their official SM spokesperson and giving him/her unparalleled access to marketing strategies doesn’t quite sound right.

3) Who will supervise the intern’s work ?
There needs to be someone senior who has to take care of the intern’s work profile and how is he/she handling it. Given the niche nature(at least in PizzaHut) of the job I am not sure if there will be any approriate senior(with social media expertise) to supervise his/her work.

From the looks of it, this seems more like an experimental move, probably driven from the PR department to leverage the situation and get some traction in social media circles. As expected, there has been a rise in the mention of “PizzaHut” in Twitter since the news came out.

pizzahut_tweetsWhatever the case maybe, this move will boost confidence of others who were contemplating jumping on the social media bandwagon and also give a tiny ray of hope for those millions of Twitterers, that they too can one day get paid of posting updates on their favorite service.

Handling Social Media Disasters

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When I wrote “Social Media: Handle with Care” it skipped me that Handle with Care applies to everyone who uses Social Media whether they realize it or not and this hold true even more strictly with employees/representatives of a brand.

The interwebs are abuzz with links to this video

These workers at Domino’s didn’t realize that just by uploading a 2.5 minutes video on YouTube  about what apparently is just a prank they have brought the company they work for in face to face to what could be called a “Social Media Disaster”.

Negative buzz spreads a lot faster than positive confirms Emanuel Rosen, author of highly popular book “Anatomy of Buzz” and that’s what we are seeing as I write this. It’s a given  that had this video been about something great Domino’s folks are doing, not even 10% of those who are spreading the word would have bothered to share it with their friends and followers.

While a lot is being said and will be said about how gross the video is, the employees are jerks and should be fired(or even jailed) and how we shouldn’t eat out etc what people tend to miss is “what next”, we have a situation at our hand and we know that it’s just an unfortunate incident which doesn’t really signify or imply anything about the way pizza’s are made at Domino’s or at any other pizza joint but what is it that they can do to reduce the side/after effects ?

Goodasyou posted a few videos and communicated with Domino’s officials about the same. The company reps replied diplomatically which is a fair way to go about it. Other than replying to all the written and telephonic communication in this regard they also need to find a way out to remove/block those videos(fake ?)  and there has to be opened an official channel(social media off course) to interact with upset customers and update them regularly about the incident and what they are dealing with it.

What do you think should the people behind dominos do to reduce the impact  on their brand ?