When Environmentalists attack!

The Nestle candy company has recently been receiving some heat from a global environmentalist group known as Greenpeace. While it is the organizations directive to stand up for environmental issues around the world, Greenpeace is taking their objective to the next level staging a full out attack on Nestle. The organization has created several parody videos criticizing Nestle for its use of palm oil in their Kit Kat candy bar product. They have also taken over the wall of Nestle’s Facebook fanpage, posting this outrageous statements concerning Nestle’s use of the palm oil and how this act is leading not only to the destruction of Indonesian rainforest, but to the endangerment of the orangutans. However, it’s not the use of the oil that is enraging Greenpeace, it’s the source of its purchase. It seems no matter where else Nestle goes to purchase this product; they can’t hide from the heat of Greenpeace.


While enduring Greenpeace’s attacks, Nestle has made an attempt to recover. However, the attempts have so far been unsuccessful and only further provoke Greenpeace to produce more video parodies and attacks. Any recovery has also been prohibited by some of Nestle’s responses to unwanted comments that come off in a tone that is, “at times sarcastic or antagonistic,” as quoted in an article on the BNET website.

Personally I don’t think that this is a proper use of the Facebook fanpage application. The objective of Facebook fanpages is to support the pages namesake. Therefore, I believe that the Nestle Company has every right to be upset about the negative comments that are littering their wall. If Greenpeace wanted to properly voice their outrage on Nestle’s actions they should create their own properly titled page where all people with similar views could come together. However, with the lightening speed of social media and the internet, good and BAD PR spreads like wildfire.

"What happens in Vegas, stays on Facebook"

I was very excited to attend the event, “What happens in Vegas, stays on Facebook.” Being an avid Facebook user myself I was interested to learn what people in the professional world had to say about Facebook, and how my Facebook decisions will affect me in the future. The first presentation, by Emily Lenard of WiredWI, was basically a tutorial on how to manage the privacy settings on Facebook. Learning about the option of creating lists that can control what specific people on your face book see was the most helpful part for me in the first section. Now knowing this, I know I still have the option to put up whatever materials I want, and customize what each of my friends is able to see. This will definitely help protect my future reputation with perspective employers who often base character judgments on materials posted on online social media profiles.

The second part of the presentation was even more beneficial for myself. This section of the presentation focused mainly on the networking, social media website Linkedin. Linkedin is just recently coming into popularity among many people in the business world. Presenter Katie Felten of MKElive gave us a very informative tour of the site, showing everything from how to present yourself professionally on your profile to how to make connections with other users and use that to your benefit. Overall this was the most helpful for me because I am not particularly familiar with Linkedin and it will be a great business networking tool to have in my belt in the future.

Overall this was THE most interesting presentation I have attended yet at this university, and better yet, I actually learned some things!

Opions taken with a grain of salt...

As a business owner, your main objective is to earn a profit. Hopefully, most customers taking advantage of your business or service will be pleased with the outcome. However, you will have the occasional customer who is displeased. Thus being so, it is your job, as a business owner to make sure that customer’s displeasure goes away and they continue to return to, and leave your business a satisfied, happy customer. I can guarantee you, Sarah, a customer at a Minnesota movie theater will not soon be returning after receiving a vulgar email in response to her complaint of a poor experience. Granted, Sarah’s email wasn’t the most polite, however it is not her job to keep the business owner happy, it’s the other way around. To read the full email exchange, visit the website for the local Twin Cities newspaper.

In response to this, two Facebook fan pages have come about; one, with over 5,000 fans, supporting Sarah and her movement to boycott the theater, and another supporting theater president Steve Payne, with only 200 fans. I do think this is an appropriate use of the Facebook fan page application, especially for Sarah and her cause. She is able to inform people on a large scale what had happened to her and allows her to get support from them very quickly. Although this is not the intended use of the Facebook fan page it is very fast and effective.

Recently, I have come across a similar fan page on Facebook in which disgruntled customers can ban together and make their point heard. This is the fan page titled “I HATE Bronze Body & Brew and I Want My Money Back!” This fan page is in response to the local Whitewater tanning salon going out of business without informing any of their customers and leaving them with numerous tans lost. In such a small town, the page has reached almost 1,000 members and still continues to grow. Many fans, of which I am one have used this page to vent and talk about plans of action to get our money back.