Boeing’s social media presence during the 737 Max 8 Crisis
Crisis Overview
Recently, The Boeing Company, an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide has been under heat after two Boeing planes crash in a span of five months.
In May of 2017, Boeing shipped out their first model of the 737 Max 8 airplane, and carriers immediately rushed to purchase the aircraft. This aircraft was incredibly popular; Boeing reported a total of 4,700 737 Max 8’s being sold within the first few weeks of the plane being on the market.
However, on October 29th, 2018, Lion Air Flight #610 (a Boeing 737 Max 8 plane) crashed into the Java Sea just twelve minutes after takeoff; killing a total of 189 people.
Just five months following the Lion Air crash, on March 10th, 2019, another 737 Max 8 plane, Ethiopian Air Flight #302 crashed just six minutes after takeoff; killing 157 people and bringing the casualty total from both crashes to 346 people.
Just three days after the second crash, all 737 Max 8 planes are grounded by government mandate (in the United States and abroad). These planes remain grounded today.
Boeing’s social media presence during crisis (analyzed by platform)
Facebook (FB)
Following the Lion Air crash back in October of 2018, Boeing does not post anything regarding the incident on their Facebook (FB) page. Instead, they continued “business as usual” and began posting content regarding their 787 Dreamliner plane. In fact, one Dreamliner FB post that appeared on Boeing’s Facebook page on November 21st seemed ill-timed, considering November 21st is when Boeing issued a press release to their website pertaining to the Lion Air crash (note: the press release was issued almost an entire month after the crash). You can see the two below:
Boeing does make a statement regarding the Lion Air crash on their Facebook page, however it is not until after the Ethiopian Air crash that occurred in March, 2019. Boeing issued one, grand apology that seemed to combine the two crashes into one, instead of issuing an apology for each. You can see the timestamp on the post here:
Following the crash in March of 2019, Boeing is much more active on Facebook, releasing the following posts:
However, people are not pleased..
Unlike on Facebook, Boeing takes a more active approach when responding to the crisis situation on Twitter, releasing a statement as soon as the company learns about the initial Lion Air crash, and continuously updating their followers as they receive more information. You can view these tweets below:
Following the second crash in March of 2019, Boeing remains active on Twitter, constantly posting, updating, and showing concern for followers, as you can see below:
Boeing does nothing to bring attention to or inform their audience of either crash on their Instagram page. Below you can see posts regarding the 737 Max 8 prior to both crashes. Because Boeing did not release a formal statement, Boeing takes to these photos to express their anger/discontent:
While Boeing does not update their Instagram audience regarding this crisis, they do provide a link in their bio that contains updates on 737 Max 8 info:
Evaluation
After reviewing Boeing’s social media platforms, it is clear that this situation was not handled effectively. Boeing did certain things properly, but not across each of their platforms. While each social media platform has a different purpose, Boeing still should have done a better job of informing their audience on each platform. On Instagram, Boeing did nothing to inform their audience about the crash. If I was a Boeing loyalist or, if I only followed Boeing on Instagram, I would be angry if I had to find out from a third-party source about the crashes. I also think that Boeing had a timing issue when releasing information regarding the crisis. While timing was not an issue on Twitter, it certainly was on Facebook. I think Boeing needs to reevaluate how timely they disseminate content on their social media platform and make sure they do not wait too long to make a statement like they did during the first Lion Air crash on Facebook.
I think Boeing did a poor job of responding to their audience via social media following the Lion Air crash, however I think they did improve on their social media strategies following the first crash. After the second crash, their Twitter and Facebook presence and quality of content did increase substantially.
In the future, I would like to see Boeing take more of an active role on Instagram. Right now, they are silent during times of crisis, and even though this may not be the primary platform for disseminating crisis information, users should still be informed on Boeing’s dealings.