Causes of Social Media Failure

Qantas airline,
Inc. 420 Australia
October 5, 2018
To: Alan Joyce, company CEO
From: Communication department
Subject: Issues causing social media failure
Introduction
Social media use contributes to almost 80% of success of the business. Effective use of the
platform results to creation of good company image. However, the organization has not set up
well the social media platform and how it should be used effectively. The report therefore
discusses the main causes of social media failure and strategies to be implemented to avoid
such failures.
Social Media failure
Social media sometimes may fail and create a bad image about an organization due to various
issues that occurs by mistake or accidentally. Since it is an internet based platform used
widely by the whole world. The issues mostly affect organizations negatively once they arise
because the information always spread very fast and is accessed by many people. Qantas
have experienced various social media failure which has created a bad image all over

Australia and the neighbouring countries. The Airline Company first experienced social
media failure when they launched a public contest on the company twitter platform that
offered the participants a chance to win one of the 50 pair Qantas pyjama suits and luxury
amenity kit. The participants were supposed to use the hash tag #QantasLuxury so as to
describe their dream experience of how luxurious the Qantas flight service is. Instead of the
participant giving positive comments of the airline services, they ended up twitting about
their complaints for the previous bad service they experienced from the airline services
(McMillen & Alter 2017). This led to creation of bad image of the company as many people
who dint know about the airline shortcomings got to know about it from the tweets. The
controversial photographs that were shared through Qantas social media platform also went
viral. Many people were able to see them and send bad comments about the photographs
before it could be corrected, most people had already access the photos and developed
negative perception towards the organization. The comments send in response to what was
tweeted clearly show that the communication management of the organization was
completely poor and personnel in charge were not keen with whatever they communicate
about. This as well created a bad image for the organization.
Strategies that prevents social media failure
Various strategies that has to be put in place to avoid social media failure or issues as
observed in Qantas includes; ensure that the content or information supposed to be posted in
social media platform have been thoroughly checked and should not display a negative
thought to people who will access the platform. The security of the social media platform
should also be strictly protected by use of strong password to protect the information posted
from being accessed by attackers and hackers. The organization management should also take
the initiative of properly training the employees about social media and how to use it
appropriately. The employees should also be provided with proper guidelines of using social

media and handling issues that arise from the use of social media. The organization should
not take advantage of crisis that occurs to put an agenda on the same platform, since this will
give complainants a great chance to get back and it will probably not be in a good way.
Mistake made should also be corrected immediately and by use of polite language to avoid
trolls, this is because, fans who were wronged before always wait for such chances where
mistake is made to respond with wrong messages and make fan of every post. (Jensen 2015)
Main problem faced by Qantas
The main problems faced by Qantas include; engine failure on 30th August 2010 that resulted
in an explosion. The same was experienced from three other different aircrafts that was
taking over from Australia to Singapore, this forced the pilots to take a turn back which
inconvenienced most of the passengers especially those who had emergency to settle. The
second problem faced was failed publicity stunt. This occurred when the company launched a
competition for participants to win tickets to watch the Rugby game. Participants were
supposed to tell Qantas how they will show their support for Wallabies of Australian Rugby
union via twitter. The winners selected were identified to have shared controversial
photographs that most people find it not right to be shared on social media. That created
another major problem.
Issues that caused social media failure in Qantas
The main issues that caused social media failure in Qantas first of all were lack of proper
display of information. The management of communication was generally poor. The
personnel involved in sharing information were not very keen in whatever was being posted.
For example, a thank you message was seen to have been posted in a platform where
participants were posting negative comments and making fan of the issue posted. Another
issue was poor security of the social media platform. The organization could have made it

easier to block participants who always comment negatively about the services offered in
order to maintain a good image. Thirdly, lack of proper guidelines and training on use of
social media by employees also resulted in social media failure. However, the main strength
of Qantas was their quick response to any issue that occurs. The employees always tried to
make sure such issues have been handled as fast as possible. The airline faced various risks
which they tried to mitigate with effective means. However, the ways of mitigating and
handling risks that faces the organization operations especially the explosions experienced
frequently should be improved. (Law 2017)
Developing strategies
According to the discussion from the case study. The company main vision is to be the
leading world class airline company in Australia. This vision can only be achieved by
ensuring customers needs are met, the brand image is corrected and make customers believe
the airline is the best in the whole country once more and the services offered are made more
efficient with less risks involved. In addition, the main KPI that will lead the organization in
achieving this includes; conversions, the organization should ensure conversion of many
people who visit their social media platform into customers. Reach, the organization should
ensure many people access what is offered and build the best brand name (Oliveira &
Figueira 2017)
Established rules
The appropriate rules to govern the airline operations should involve posting of appropriate
information that focuses on attracting more customers and nothing else. Secondly, policies
and procedures put in place should guide both the organization as a whole and customers as
well as the interaction on social media. Rules and regulations should also be put in place to
ensure appropriate online engagement of parties involved. (Aryal, Ciliberto & Leyden 2018)

Conclusion
An effective team of managers should be created to closely monitor the services offered and
ensure appropriate feedback is provided to customers as well as ensuring customers needs are
met with minimal complaints. The employees should also be well trained especially on use of
social media to make the whole operation more effective and efficient.
CC: senior management

References
Aryal, G., Ciliberto, F. and Leyden, B 2018, ‘Public Communication and Collusion in the
Airline Industry’, SSRN Electronic Journal.
Jensen, K 2015, ‘What’s Social About Social Media?’, Social Media + Society, 1(1),
p.205630511557887.
Law, C 2017, ‘The study of customer relationship management in Thai airline industry: A
case of Thai travelers in Thailand’, Journal of Airline and Airport Management, 7(1), p.13.
McMillen, R. and Alter, F 2017, ‘Social media, social inclusion, and museum disability
access’, Museums & Social Issues, 12(2), pp.115-125.
Oliveira, L. and Figueira, Á 2017, ‘Improving the benchmarking of social media content
strategies using clustering and KPI’, Procedia Computer Science, 121, pp.826-834.