02/28/2018

What KFC Taught Us about Crisis Management

How the chicken giant responded to its latest challenge

On Jan. 5, 2018, I declared that KFC was, “still absolutely on point for another corker of a year” when it comes to their social media strategy... On Feb. 19, KFC ran out of chicken (awks) and 600 out of 900 of their stores across Britain were forced to shut up shop. So, amidst #KFCCrisis trending and their competitors taking cheap shots at ‘em, what did we learn about crisis management on social media?

You rock up to your favourite chicken shop and it’s closed. What’s the first thing you do? Head to social media to rant and rave, and share a few quick quips about it. Seriously, everyone did. Even Jesus Christ himself didn’t miss out on the meme opportunity. In fact, the whole of Twitter (kinda) went into meltdown, claiming that the supply problem from the UK’s favourite fried chicken chain was a sign of the apocalypse and how disgruntled they were that they now had to eat at Burger King.

With thousands of users causing a ruckus on Twitter, @KFC_UKI had to respond. I like to imagine the social media manager being pulled into a meeting to be told, “Right, so, here’s the thing… We don’t have any chicken.” What do you even say to that?!

Please select this link to read the complete article from LinkedIn.