Chapstick in a social media death spiral

Chapstick's first mistake was to post an offensively stupid picture on the internet. But what really got chapstick in trouble was the way they handled the backlash of comments. Chapstick had initially allowed for open comments on their facebook page, but when negative comments started coming in, instead of addressing the comments, Chapstick responded by simply deleting them. Posters got enraged that their comments were disappearing and in-turn posted more. The story got out that Chapstick was censoring comments and that drew in even more angry people Soon enough the censors at Chapstick were unable to keep up with all the deleting and the page deteriorated into a hate page. Chapstick finally got the clue, posted an apology and started addressing the comments with a bit of humor. This shows the importance of being able to address mistakes gracefully in a connected world where everyone has a voice. Companies need to understand that media-empowered customers do not respond favorably to censorship and if companies try and overpower the public, the public will always win.

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/chapstick-gets-itself-social-media-death-spiral-136097