Would Being More Social Help BP?

As British Petroleum struggles to contain one of the worst oil spills in history, a debate about the company’s online response is beginning to bubble to the surface.   Some have questioned whether their purchasing of search terms is ethical.  My former Forrester colleague Josh Bernoff points out that no amount of social PR can fix your company’s actual issues (and, as he predicted, BP’s attempts to shut down a parody Twitter account have led to even more bad press).

BP can leverage the power of social tools to help their current situation – but only if all current business processes are aligned and calibrated for social activation.  The aforementioned paid search ads lead to the site pictured, where visitors will see phone numbers that offer several ways for consumers to contact BP.

What’s missing? Basic social tools that could provide more efficient ways to bring people together to solve problems – not to mention potentially alleviate call center traffic.  A side effect?  A modicum of positive PR, something that BP currently completely lacks.

What if BP added a “social” tab to this page, featuring:

• A wiki to provide information on how volunteers should properly deal with affected wildlife.
• A community to help would-be volunteers organize and mobilize.
• A community for those who have filed claims to help others through the process (and for BP to learn ways to make the process easier).
• An online directory of people to register their boats and professional services
• A forum to crowdsource ideas to fix the problem.

Most will scoff at the last notion, but a 21 year-old engineering student was recently featured on CNN discussing the fix that she proposed to BP executives. The possibilities are certainly real, with an independent group of engineers last year winning $1M for solving a complicated business problem that Netflix scientists couldn’t solve.

What else could BP do?  How about:

• An app to let people report affected areas and wildlife, similar to the City of Boston’s Citizens Connect iPhone app that lets residents report pot holes and graffiti.
• A private market research community made up of carefully selected consumers to begin to test public messaging.
• A local social program to help gas station owners who are being affected by boycotts (independent franchisees who are disproportionately affected by something that is completely out of their control).

Of course, for these efforts to be successful, they would have to be planned, heavily moderated, highly coordinated, and integrated with current data and information systems – then communicated to consumers, franchise owners, the media, and government officials.  In other words, all social business systems would have needed to be in place before disaster struck.   As all business functions become social functions, a proper social response is no longer just a PR response – it’s a business response.

Is your business ready for disaster?

Disclosure Statement: BP is a client of Headshift, a Dachis Group company.