Lettuce introduce the Burger King crisis

The Burger King crisis:

Burger King had a crisis this past July when a photo of an employee standing in a bucket of their lettuce started making the rounds on the internet. First uploaded on the site 4chan.org with the headline "This is the lettuce you eat at Burger King," the image quickly spread via twitter and facebook. Naturally, many customers who enjoyed the food chain were disgusted at the image, causing many to take to social media to express their opinions.  This caused a flood of negative commentary regarding Burger King and their products quality.

Once Burger King corporate became aware of the photo, they immediately issued a statement, which said:

"Burger King Corp. has recently been made aware of a photo that shows a Burger King restaurant employee violating the company's stringent food handling procedures. Food safety is a top priority at all Burger King restaurants and the company maintains a zero-tolerance policy against any violations such as the one in question.

          

The restaurant where this photo was allegedly taken is independently owned and operated by a Burger King franchisee. The franchisee has taken swift action to investigate this matter and terminated the employee involved in this incident. "

Using the photo as a guide to locate and identify the employee within 24hours of their initial statement, Burger King updated their social media outlets to inform their customers they have fired the employee.

What I would have done:

I would to point out that I think Burger King dealt with the problem in a timely manner. According to my research into the crisis, it's clear that they had some form of a crisis strategy plan in place. However, there are a few things I would have suggested that could have helped control the crisis on their social media pages.

1. I would have encouraged the Community Manager to engage the negative comments letting their Facebook and Twitter followers know that they are looking into this photo, not taking the situation lightly, and they appreciate the feedback.

2. Start a social media campaign to highlight all the amazing dedicated Burger King employees who love working for the company. By posting images and stories onto the Burger King facebook or Pinterest pages, it would create new positive images for the business.

3. Have a customer appreciation day where if you retweet or 'like' the Burger King facebook page you are mailed a coupon for a free Whopper. This would encourage customers to continue buying the product while highlighting a new social media campaign rather then a crisis.