On April 20, 2010 the Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, spewing millions of gallons of oil into the gulf. BP the owners of the rig responded over the course of the following weeks on the internet. They used mediums such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, the company website, blogs, and Live Stream as a tactic in their response to the spill and to help communicate with those affected. It took the company a week to respond online.
The first online response to the oil spill was on April 27, via a post on Twitter stating, “BP pledges full support for Deepwater Horizon probes.” Since this first Tweet, BP has been using Twitter almost daily to update those affected on anything that is happening because of or as a result of the spill.
The next online response to the oil spill was on May 2, via an update on Facebook. The company updated their contact, news, and notes tabs on their Facebook page. BP is again updating this medium almost daily. The Facebook page overtime has given updates on how much oil has been collected in the Gulf of Mexico as well as any other information about the oil spill.
Other ways that BP has responded online to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico include the use of their own channel on YouTube, on which they have videos related to response and cleanup efforts, claims, health and safety, and restoration of the environment and wildlife. BP has also used Flickr to post images of what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico. Other mediums that have been used by BP include setting up a section on their webpage for information on the oil spill, establishing bloggers to report of the spill is affecting the various areas, and running a live stream of the millions of gallons of crude oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.
On paper, overall this looks like a winner, BP utilized any mediums possible to communicate with those affected by the spill and tried to establish ways of hearing what the public was saying. Unfortunately, for all that was done, it may have not been enough. Because BP waited a week before actually trying to communicate to those who were affected by the oil spill, many people were developing their strong feelings on the situation. If BP had acted in a timelier manner, then they may have had a chance at being more influential, but in a crisis one week can seem like a decade. This was BP’s major mess up when it came to their online response.
BP could have done a couple things differently for their online campaign and made it work better for them. First, if BP had responded online sooner this would have helped the mass of people that went online to find out more information develop a more positive response to the company. Second, because of the lapse in time between the oil spill and the online response, many fake BP accounts were being set up on Twitter and Facebook. Had they monitored the internet better, they could have had these fake accounts taken down within minutes of going up, instead they let these stand, and as a result had their image tarnished even more in the minds of those that were searching for information online about the spill.
