Plan of Action Towards the Company Social Media Failure

Introduction

This memo provides the plan of action to respond to the company's failed and publicly scrutinized social media contest through Twitter. It must be recognized that Qantas Airline has faced tremendous communication challenges that have emanated through a wrong move to initiate or launch a contest through social media platform, Twitter. Considering the above communication breakdown that the Company's management faced, the company must therefore put down some procedures that will see into it that once adored Airline Company regains its public image and perception it had initially before the unfortunate incidences occurred. In analyzing the situation the company was at that moment, I would hint some of the recommendations that in my knowledge will help to kick the Company back to its original position it was before the communication disaster broke out.

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Qantas should take various future actions to build a positive public perception of the brand in various ways. Firstly, I would recommend that the company should be able to swallow and welcome any unconvincing media feedback. This should not be a cause for any disturbance. The company should also not assume these negative views because they are a source of concern to know where the management went wrong. By doing this, the company shall have avoided the future occurrence of the same. This feedback strengthens the company as it will be able to tell the concerned management on their customer service skills. This helps in areas where adjustments are needed. On the other hand, these feedbacks are going to help Qantas Company to know the fact about their brand and the quality of services that they offer (Yin et al. 2012). It could be that the public ranted against the Company on twitter because the message that was posted did not align with the facts on the ground. This could be true owing to the situation that the company was at about customers and the general public regarding their service delivery that was completely messed up. In this case, the company realized that there was a problem that needed to be fixed-up. Therefore, feedbacks should never be ignored. I would also recommend that Qantas Company remain stuck and right to its values. The absence of brand values can make the company struggle to define and refine its brand perception. This will help to provide direction to the management on what and what not to do at any given moment. It has the effect of creating consistency in decision making. It acts as a point of reference too. It is worth noting that the Company's customers will only be shown in the identity of the brand which highly depends on the company's culture.

Another action that I would advise the company to take to redeem its public perception is that the company should be engaged due to the fact that social media like Twitter have given different brands a platform to engage in business talks and therefore helps the various Companies to build true friendship with others and not merely where broadcast is made. It should hence be apparent to the Qantas Company that these platforms can as well be used to build good links with admirers of their products. They should, therefore, be responded to diligently and with due respect.

In addition to the above, I further advise the company to be consistent and authentic to their services and brands. Consistency enables the company to provide services to the customers continuously thereby avoiding unnecessary delays that may cause inconveniences to the passengers (Nesbitt, 2017)

Before a company like Qantas engages in social media, it important to note that there are some various factors that should be considered to avoid future problems arising from the use of these platforms. Timing is one of the most critical factors that a company should be able to control before it gets into social media (Hollensen, Kotler, & Opresnik, 2017). Just like it is essential in production and any other activity, the time has to be considered before any post in the press is made. This will help the company to determine when it is convenient to capture the attention of the large audience. The company, should, however, know that perfect times to post to various media platforms vary.

Another factor to be considered by the Qantas Company while making a post to the social media should be quality of the platform. It is of great value to note that quality at times supersedes quantity and therefore must be taken into consideration (Levy, 2014). The management of Qantas should also prioritize quality over quantity to avoid such a communication disaster they faced in the future. However, they should be cautious on how they relay data in the public domain.

In addition to the above factors, the company should also consider the cost and type of the social platform. According to Zwiers (2014), the consideration of the cost and type enablers the company to evaluate the cost-benefit analysis so that it can know whether they stand a chance to gain or lose. The type of platform benefits the company because some are advertisement oriented while others are merely interaction sites.

Given the above, as the Chief Executive Officer of Qantas Airlines, I would recommend to the management some of the following course of action to help curb the possibility of the same happening. They may include;

For the Company to regain the public trust they had before, I would recommend to the management to consider a waiver on the air tickets for some time as this will help bring back those customers who had lost hope (Lucarelli, 2014). This should be communicated directly through appropriate channel to the customers and should always be done.

Another recommendation I would put across to the management is to ensure that there are standing aircraft that can help during emergencies that faced the company. This action will help ensure that passengers across the world are not inconvenienced in their traveling schedules. This recommendation is intended to help the Company to keep trust with its customers' demand and to ensure that there is a continuous flow of revenue to the company and this should always be done through appropriate channels. In addition to the above recommendations, the company ought to provide a mature apologetic content to the public through an official and more formal platform in case of a misperception of a given material by the public. This has the effect of acknowledging a problem which can be received positively instead.

Reference List

Bowdon, M.A., 2014. Tweeting an ethos: Emergency messaging, social media, and teaching technical communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 23(1), pp.35-54.Hollensen, S., Kotler, P., & Opresnik, M. O. (2017). Social Media Marketing: A practitioner guide.

Levy, S. (2014). Tweet naked: A bare-all social media strategy for boosting your brand and your business. Irvine Entrepreneur Press,

Lucarelli, G., 2014. The corporate strategy of Qantas Airways. A case study.Nesbitt, J., 2017. Insights from the company monitor: Qantas. Equity, 31(9), p.17.

Oxenbridge, S., Wallace, J., White, L., Tiernan, S. and Lansbury, R., 2010. A comparative analysis of restructuring employment relationships in Qantas and Aer Lingus: different routes, similar destinations. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 21(2), pp.180-196.

Yin, J., Lampert, A., Cameron, M., Robinson, B., and Power, R., 2012. Using social media to enhance emergency situation awareness. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 27(6), pp.52-59.Zwiers, M.M., 2014. Exploration and explanation of the multiple ways of how employees make use of social media in their daily practices (Master's thesis, University of Twente).