Alina’s blog

With the introduction of the internet introduced in 1983, and platforms such as twitter, Facebook and Instagram launched in the early 2000s it is a complete new and growing way of how businesses can now connect with their audience. (Andrews, 2019). Businesses use social media for several different reasons such as having the ability to increase the visibility of your personal brand, build and cultivate a personal and professional network and grow relationships between businesses and consumers (Business.vic.gov.au, 2019). As positive as it all sounds this then allows for business to make bigger mistakes and fails then ever before

April 23^rd, 2018, Jeff Bezos CEO of Amazon shared to the world his family vacation to Norway, in a video posted on twitter of him dog sledding on International Earth day (see image 1). In a video Mr Bezos believed that he was explaining that the earth was worth preserving, due to him promoting Blue Origin and choosing a non-global warming mode of transport, Bezos received complete criticism for his lavish holiday away (Matyszczyk, 2018). This video was posted at a time where amazon employees were going on strike due to poor warehouse conditions and below minimum wage.

Although this post didn’t violate any privacy rules from twitter, it did turn into an ethical issue for the Amazon business. Through early 2018 throughout the world Amazon had been receiving backlash from its hundreds of thousands of employees. With employees from the US needing assistance from the Supplemental nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), due to the below minimum wages not being enough for food to be purchased (Schiller, 2018). An undercover reported from the UK, went into the UK based warehouse to find out employees were urinating into bottles, as they couldn’t afford to stop work for a bathroom break and in Spain, works called for a three-day strike. (Liao, 2018) (U.S., 2018). The untimely choice to display his personal life across a social media platform encouraged individuals to share and comment their negative opinions on the situation (see image 2 and 3). Comedian Sarah Silverman decided to share her personal thoughts commenting and sharing as well.

“Why do your employees need to be on food stamps and govt assistance? Be an example of fair payment and take the pressure off the taxpayers who are subsidizing ur lack of fair pay. I KNOW you can do it, Jeff! Don’t be like the Waltons of Walmart. “

Sarah Silverma

Several factors contributed to this post being a fail amongst the greater public. These factors include both the influence of cultural context on the content and the misunderstanding of the social media overlap, of what should be shown publicly and what should be kept private.

The cultural and social content of this media fail was a reason to the collapse of context and meaning behind the post, with a misunderstanding to how far the content would reach and how it would be interpreted. Mr Bezos intentions for the post was to share his personal support and promotion to his other company an organisation named Blue Global, who want to help build and preserve our earth and in doing so he shared a personal video of his family vacation. The intention and purpose behind the post was completely ignored from other twitter users. The greater public were focusing on, the CEO and president of Amazon was not fighting to fix employees working conditions and instead spend money on an overseas vacation.  

Once the video was posted and available for all twitter users to see, the easy access of twitters retweet function allowed and encouraged other users to spread the video and post their negative opinions and comments with. This allowed the social media fail to spread, growing rapidly and reaching a much larger audience. The ability to re post to a larger audience allows for the exchange of emotional and motivational contents in support for the opinions towards the opposition to then protest activity, including messages emphasizing anger, social identification, group efficacity and concerns about fairness, justice and deprivation (Jost et al., 2018).

Another contribution to this fail was the personal misunderstanding of the social media overlap. A lot of business CEOs host a social media platform such as linked in and twitter. On these platforms’ CEOs can reach out to their target market and audience and show a more personal side (Byer, 2019).  As there are many positives and benefits towards having social platform for a business owner, there is an overlap between what is professional and what is private.

Mixing a personal video with a professional comment is what caused this post to be considered a fail. In definition a professional platform is an individual’s multi-resume complete with endorsements. It provides a platform that allows a business to publicly grow and develop. (Cohen, 2015) A personal platform is a way to engage with family and friends, regardless of location. (Cohen, 2015). The effects of mixing a professional and personal social media post is the accountability of personal views, as a professional platform it is best to keep personal views to oneself as you aren’t fully aware of your audience. Focusing on your target audience can become forgotten when mixing the two platforms. (Zielinski, 2017). Having posted a personal video with a professional message both the target market was forgotten, and personal values, views and ethics were displayed. (Zielinski, 2017)

This fail altogether could have been simply avoided. If I were to be standing in Mr Bezos shoes in the time before positing this, I would have stopped myself. As ethically his business Amazon was under fire due to unfair work conditions and by publicly showing my personal lifestyle and spending could cause more ethical harm towards the business. By mixing a post that was both personal and professional the response and reaction of the greater audience cannot be guessed especially at such a sensitive time in his career. Ethically Mr Bezos made a poor choice in supportive content (the video) to be posted on his professional platform, instead he could have posted a photo in relation to his other business Origin blue, who state they want to create a better earth. The video could then be kept private and for personal use only, this then makes the International Earth Day post, factual, professional and in relation to his work and therefore can not be connected to other issues that are going on public in relation to the person.

The reaction from this post caused more harm then good to Mr Bezos and his company Amazon, putting more pressure to fix their ethical uses, which eventually they did later that year. Social media fails are quite easy to make for anyone on a social media platform. For professionals running a public personal and business platform it is important to understand what you are posting and as well understanding what is going on around you, such as current affair etc, therefore any posts made are less likely to be linked to them and then regarding the post as a social media fail.

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