Blog 8: Nestle

I read a few articles for this weeks blog, and here are the links to them.

Article 1
Article 2
Article 3
Article 4
Article 5

The summary of the articles is this. Nestle uses an ingredient in some of their candy bars called palm oil. Palm oil supposedly destroys rainforests and therefore affects the orangutan population. An environmental protection group called Greenpeace is outraged at Nestle for continuing to use palm oil in their products, so they created a parody video on YouTube of Nestle's KitKat candy bar product. Nestle asked that the video be removed, but the video became viral and it was too late for Nestle to do anything about it. Greenpeace created another video that was a parody of Nestle's reaction. People visited Nestle's Facebook page and started leaving comments attacking them for destructing the rainforests. This can all be described as a social media meets public relations disaster according to one of the above articles. This just goes to show that Facebook fan pages can sometimes backfire on companies. I think you can use Facebook however you want, whether it was responsible or not I don't think there is a clear answer to that question. It's like telling your friend to boycott Nestle, only Facebook amplifies it so that millions of people hear your message. Facebook is just another way of being heard and it just so happens that millions of people can hear you. I don't think that Nestle purposely used palm oil in their products to harm the rainforest and endangered species so I don't think they are in the wrong. I do think that they should find an alternative ingredient to put in their products or come up with a different solution so that they don't destroy the rainforests.

What happens in Vegas stays on Facebook

On March 9th I attended two very interesting presentations involving the social media networking websites Facebook and Linkedin. The speaker for the Facebook presentation talked about how everything you do on your Facebook page can affect you in ways that you might not have known before. For example, when you are looking for a job your potential employer can find your Facebook page to find out things that they can't through an interview. They can look through all of your pictures and see comments you make to your friends. In the presentation she also talked about how to block people from seeing things that you don't want them to see. Nobody can see things that you block, and they can't pay Facebook for that information. I think this is all very important stuff because almost everyone today has a Facebook page, but many people don't realize how it can affect them in the ways that it can. That's probably the most valuable information that I took away from the speaker.
The second speaker talked about another very popular social networking website called Linkedin. Linkedin is a more professional website than Facebook, and it's used mainly for networking with other people professionaly. You can create a profile and network with people with similar interests as you. It's basically used to help people break into the job world and help each other out. The most valuable information that the speaker gave me was just showing us how to set up your Linkedin page so that you can look as professional as you can. She showed us a good example of the type of picture you should have on your page, what information you should post and what you should keep private, and things like that.

You can visit Katie Felten's Linkedin page here
You can visit their website here

My general impression of both presentations was that they both had very useful information on two of the most popular social media networking websites there are today. These websites are very useful tools, especially for graduating college students like us. All in all, their information was very helpful and I'm glad I had the chance to listen to them speak.

Fanpages and Facebook

I recently read an article about a woman who had a bad experience at her local movie theater in Minnesota. She didn't have a good experience, so she emailed the theater manager. She got a very mean and explicit reply back from the VP of the company. The lady was so upset that she started a facebook fanpage boycotting the theater. The facebook page got over 5,000 members. So the question is, was she out of line in creating a facebook page to boycott the theater? My initial answer is no, she wasn't out of line because the customer is always right. Even thought I don't think she crossed the line, I don't think it was very responsible of her. If you have a bad experience somewhere you don't have to ever go back, that's all. Obviously if the theater is doing well other people are enjoying their experiences there. But then again, the fanpage got over 5,000 members so it seems to me that the lady wasn't the only one who had a bad experience at that movie theater. So maybe by her creating the fanpage enough people will boycott the theater and they will be forced to change their customer service. I work in retail, and if a customer came up to me and said that she doesn't like the store that I work at, I couldn't go off on her and start swearing at her like the VP did at the movie theater, so he was definitely out of line. The lady used the fanpage for what they are there for, which is to basically increase awareness for something. Just because the fanpage can be viewed as "negative" doesn't mean that she was out of line.

Here is a link to the fanpage that the lady made.
Here is a facebook fanpage in support of the VP of the theater
Here is more information on the incident
Here are the series of emails