Twitter backlash teaches JPMorgan a hard lesson

JPMorgan Chase is learning the hard way that as much as social media gives, it can also take away.

The investment bank that shepherded Twitter through its successful IPO last week had scheduled a live Twitter chat for today with its vice chairman, James (Jimmy) B. Lee Jr. It was supposed to be an informal Q&A-type discussion where the main driver of the most significant technology offering this year would share his insights. The company saw the event as a unique opportunity to attract students looking for career advice in the investment field. It shared a number of tweets to build awareness and momentum and start collecting ideas and questions for participants to chew on.

To the dark side

So far, this was textbook social media execution. Until Twitter users weighed in, at which point things quickly turned ugly.

Instead of tuning in to talk about their careers, Twitter users responded with an avalanche of negative comments. An analysis by Topsy revealed 80,000 tweets were sent to the #AskJPM hashtag, two-thirds of them negative-toned. Respondents poked fun – in often-combative and profane language – at JPMorgan’s recent market setbacks, including the US$13 billion fine it could face in the wake of a botched mortgage bond deal, and the $6 billion London Whale fiasco.

The backlash prompted JPMorgan to cancel the event outright with a terse tweet:

“Tomorrow’s Q&A is cancelled. Bad Idea. Back to the drawing board.”

JPMorgan isn’t the first organization to face a virtual pitchfork-wielding social media mob. A growing number of multinational companies have all had planned campaigns go off the rails. After McDonald’s Corp. last year launched a sponsored Twitter campaign designed to solicit customers’ thoughts on its restaurants, online respondents instead bombarded the #McDStories hashtag with jokes about food quality and obesity. The company pulled the plug within two hours of launch. Qantas had a campaign that asked customers to tweet about their dream vacations blow up in its face in 2011 when a simmering labour dispute prompted a Twittersphere rebellion.

Some social media disasters are self-inflicted. Burger King’s choice of the #WTFF – “what the french fry” – hashtag ran into problems when Twitterers mockingly pointed out the short-form was also a commonly used, and not suitable for prime time, reference.

Wrong response

In all cases, the rapid-fire, knee-jerk reaction to a social media rebellion was a quick shutdown. Yet as the rules for marketing and brand management are fundamentally rewritten by the shift to online platforms, nothing could be worse for a company’s image.

Pulling the plug may give marketing planners the time they need to figure out what went wrong and methodically plot their next move, but the fact that JPMorgan Chase needs a timeout in the first place is ample proof it went into the campaign with its eyes closed. In 2013, no social media campaign on any platform should ever be launched without a fully-baked contingency plan that documents, in detail, potential negative audience responses, and equivalent organizational activities designed to mitigate the damage and turn the tide. Call it a disaster recovery plan (DRP) for social media.

The stark truth is that consumer backlash is virtually inevitable whether you’re selling burgers, vacation flights or corporate advice. Any company that wades into the murky waters without a Plan B in its back pocket isn’t only asking for trouble. It’s telegraphing to the world how disconnected it is from the way we communicate today.

JPMorgan Chase may have mastered Wall Street last week, but it’s proven it has a long way to go before it gets even the basics of social media. Recent history suggests it’s hardly alone, and it’s only a matter of time before the next Twitter uprising.

Carmi Levy is a London, Ont.-based independent technology analyst and journalist. The opinions expressed are his own. carmilevy@yahoo.ca