Memo to BP: Here's How to Fix Your Twitter Mess

To: BP CEO Tony Hayward

RE: Your Social Media Strategy

Dear Tony,

It's no secret that you're dealing with a big problem. Two big problems, in fact. While struggling to contain BP's oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, you find yourself in the midst of a PR nightmare.

I can't help you with the first problem, unfortunately, but I can with the second. Let's talk about your social media strategy -- if, that is, BP has much of a social media strategy. It's a mess, Tony. And until you get it under control, your efforts to manage the information around this crisis is only going to deepen public suspicion; worse, you will taint BP's image for far longer than it's going to take to clean up that oil. And that's a long, long time. Why has the fake BP Twitter feed (@BPglobalpr), with a stream of caustic quips (example: Due to public outcry, our "Spill Or Be Spilled" flash game will be taken off our BP Kidz Klub website. "Smack the Greasy Manatee" stays) amassed almost 100,000 followers, while the official BP Twitter account (@BP_America) has barely 1/10th of that?

It's because you and your team have committed the classic mistake of waiting too long to participate in the discussion. This is Twitter time, Tony; it makes round-the-clock TV news seem slow.

So here's what I recommend. Use Twitter as your personal ally and blast out tweets at least once a day in an authentic voice. I see that you've just started trying this, so keep it up the tone of this tweet that you (or your team) just posted: "We are sparing no effort to bring the well under control. I am hugely grateful to the team from BP, industry and US Government.^Tony"

No matter what your legal counsel advises, never dissemble in social media. Even silence is better than half measures. It's the only chance you have to regain a degree of trust. Twitter is a great tool to broadcast your plan of action, to be direct and forceful and project a leader in charge of the crisis -- and I mean your honest, personal, forthright voice, not a release crafted by your attorneys and PR department. Public outrage is growing, and the process of trial and error to contain the leak can look ike the Keystone Cops. You're not going to stop the public anger, Tony, but forthright expressions of your own disappointment would help.

I'm not talking about crossing the line of legal liability. I'm talking about the public response of a CEO to a crisis of deepening proportions. Use Twitter to express genuine concern for your company, the Gulf and its environment, the ruined wildlife, the people affected in Louisiana. Use Twitter to update the world on BP's efforts to control the leakage, contain the spill and repair nature. Use Twitter to direct people to BP's website where fuller coverage should be available.

Here's what you must not do: Use Twitter to be defensive, evasive, or legalistic. In fact, had you used Twitter honestly from the beginning--with command, with authority, even with pathos -- I'd guarantee that you would not be the subject of such social media parody. Instead, you would have been seen as a leader in charge -- a leader in a very tough spot, for sure, but one responding appropriately. People don't make fun of that kind of leadership.

Here are five things you should do right away. I'm afraid you may have run out of time to create a new image in the social space, but you'd be a fool not to give it a try:

1. Apologize for what's happened.
2. Go to the scene and tweet real updates.
3. Be honest with the news.
4. Be human. This is a human tragedy.
5. Anticipate what's coming next -- all in your own voice.