Bank of America's Social Media Crisis

Have you heard of Christine McMullen Lindgren? Your answer is probably no, but let me introduce her and the social media crisis she created. Christine McMullen Lindgren, a Bank of America employee, became infamous overnight when she allegedly posted a rant on Facebook. This inflammatory post quickly spread across social media platforms, with #christenmullenlindgren and #christinelindgren trending widely. Her sudden notoriety gave her the dubious distinction of having her own trending hashtag, an unwanted form of internet fame.

Social Media Crisis Management

How is Bank of America responding to the deluge of messages they’re being bombarded with? They’re maintaining complete digital silence.

• Scheduled posts are still being published on Bank of America’s Facebook and Twitter accounts without addressing the crisis
• Visitor posts and comments referencing the incident are being systematically deleted and/or hidden from public view
• Visitor posts, comments, tweets, and other social media interactions about the situation are not receiving any official response

Let’s be real, my community manager/social media strategist friends, this would be the scariest type of crisis to manage in your professional career (and if not the scariest, it’d be at least one of the most challenging situations). Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance… I’d personally go through all the stages of grief and cry my eyes out facing such a situation. But with acceptance comes the responsibility of stepping up and handling things appropriately. This is something I’m sure Bank of America is doing internally, but they’ve overlooked the public dimension—specifically their customers and clients. Numerous people are expressing anger toward the bank both on and off social media platforms. These frustrated stakeholders want their concerns to be acknowledged, yet Bank of America is providing no public recognition on their social media channels.

From reading visitor posts on the Bank of America Facebook Page, the financial institution is allegedly aware of the crisis and conducting an internal investigation. Perhaps their legal team has advised against issuing a statement on social media, which may be a valid legal strategy since I am not a lawyer and can’t evaluate the legal considerations. However, from a public relations perspective, temporarily pausing scheduled posts and issuing a short, simple acknowledgment that the company is aware of the situation and investigating would help mitigate the growing backlash, even if only partially.

Social Media Mistakes

This situation strongly resembles the Edmonton Party City Crisis, and the key lesson from that incident was clear: leaving your public audience without acknowledgment on social media is a critical mistake. And, not to toot my own horn (okay, I want to toot it a little bit ), had the Bank of America Community Manager attended my session at iMEDIA Social Media Conference, they would have learned effective crisis management strategies for this exact type of situation. The important takeaway is that all of us make mistakes as social media professionals, but we can and should learn from others’ missteps. While I cannot definitively say whether legal counsel or public relations specialists are advising their current approach of silence, the fundamental principle remains: the longer an organization waits to address a public crisis, the more severe the reputational damage becomes.
I am, however, genuinely interested to see how this situation ultimately resolves.

Update

This post was originally published at 10:30am.
11:15am: Bank of America has finally issued a public statement! This comes approximately 24 hours after the crisis began.

Public reaction is mixed: some supporters are defending the brand vigorously, while many others remain dissatisfied and are explicitly threatening to transfer their accounts to competing financial institutions.

How would YOU handle this?

What do YOU think about this crisis management approach? Do you believe Bank of America’s strategy of initial silence and ignoring public concerns on social media was appropriate? What specific actions would you take if facing this situation in your organization? Is their delayed statement sufficient, or should they have included a formal apology? Please share your thoughts in the comments below or send us a tweet with your perspective.