How Britain’s Yorkshire Tea cause a social media crisis

We live in an era when politics has become highly polarized and, rather than becoming the “marketplace of ideas” that many had hoped for. Social media crisis communication in the online social media environment has become more popular in recent years.

Yorkshire Tea is the most popular traditional black tea brand sold in the UK. When the Black Lives Matter movement happened in the last few months, the Twitter users made a comment on Yorkshire Tea Twitter and said “ I’m dead chuffed that Yorkshire Tea hasn’t supported BLM” due to the Yorkshire Tea not making a response for the death of George Floyd. The Yorkshire PR team immediately defended themselves and responded to users “ Please don’t buy our tea again. We’re taking some time to educate ourselves and plan proper action before we post. We stand against racism” with a Blacklivesmatter hashtag. Social media users were so angry with the response of “Please don’t but our tea again” from the Yorkshire Tea PR team. Meanwhile, Yorkshire tea didn’t make any response to this issue after many users made comments following the post which evoke the social media crisis. Many social media users comments below this Twitter post expect to receive an apology from Yorkshire Tea to show that they truly support Black Lives Matter movement. Yorkshire Tea PR team didn’t not be quick and properly response the message to mollify their audience, but they keep ignoring the comments from the outrages users and continues to post new Twitter posts that are not related to this issue or Black Lives Matter movement which damage the brand reputation and potentially influence the tea sales.

In my opinion, Yorkshire Tea is facing a social media crisis recently due to their PR disaster. First reason, the PR team of Yorkshire tea gave an unprofessional and incorrect response to the social media audience “please don’t buy our tea again”, which would cause a large number of Twitter who think Yorkshire Tea is a racism brand. Second reason, considering that most social media users expect the response of Yorkshire Tea for BLM, Yorkshire Tea did not respond to the comments and make an apology to Twitter users and then still publish new campaign posts that are not related to the Blacklivesmatter and ignore the user’s comments. Yorkshire Tea shows a image of lack of social responsibility to Twitter user. As the most popular tea brands in the UK, Yorkshire tea should always build a high reputation and social responsibility in any event. If not, social media users would question the brands who lack responsibility. Most social media users tend to be liberal and pursue equal rights. They expect to see the response of any of the well-known brands for big events. Therefore, PR plays an important role in dealing with the social media crisis to keep the brand’s reputation.

There is a way to avoid this social media crisis in which the PR team should just respond to the social media users “We’re taking some time to educate ourselves and plan proper action before we post. We stand against racism” with a Black Lives Matter hashtag” and do not say “please don’t buy our tea again”. The post announced that Yorkshire Tea supports Black Lives Matter. I believe that if the PR team didn’t not post the sentence “please don’t buy our tea again”, the Twitter audience would not be angry with the post anymore. I realize that social media crisis management is vital for companies presenting themselves as aware, prepared, on top of things, sympathetic, reactive, and more importantly committed to safeguarding relationships with customers and stakeholders. Another important thing is the social media crisis should be dealt in a timely manner.

Reference:

Laura. “I’m Dead Chuffed That Yorkshire Tea Hasn’t Supported BLM.” Twitter, Twitter, 6 June 2020, twitter.com/thisislaurat/status/1269395475549085696?s=21.

Concannon, Lance, and Marketing Director. “How Britain’s Yorkshire Tea Dealt With a Social Media Crisis in Style |.” Sysomos, 27 Feb. 2020, sysomos.com/2020/02/27/how-britains-yorkshire-tea-dealt-with-a-social-media-crisis-in-style/