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As BP Oil Spill Spreads, Facebook and Twitter Fan the Flames

by Amar Toor on May 3, 2010 at 12:45 PM

As the fallout from last week's oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico continues to ooze its way toward land, the cries of anger echoing throughout the social media stratosphere have only intensified.

The principal target of the online rage is BP, which has been disparaged in thousands of posts across Facebook and Twitter. The company, which owns the Deepwater Horizon rig that sank on April 22nd, has been criticized for the way it has handled the incident, with many demanding that it be held accountable for the disaster. And it's not just angry bloggers spewing hate on Facebook. As the New York Times reports, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson recently tweeted on the issue herself, saying, "Someone said BP must not be let off the hook. I agree." Another Tweeter promised, "You can rest assured that I will walk before I would ever buy a gallon of your gasoline."

At the same time, BP is taking full advantage of social media to respond to critics, as well. The company, along with rig co-owner Transocean, has already set up a new Web page and a Facebook page in order to update users about what recovery efforts have been undertaken. BP America, meanwhile, has relied more exclusively on Twitter to do its damage control. "Safety is the #1 priority. We're going to figure out what happened & that is going to help the industry get safer," read one recent BP America tweet.

BP certainly has a long way to climb before it makes its way out of this public relations hole, but at least it's taken the smart first step by engaging its critics directly on Twitter and Facebook. At the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is getting the spill cleaned safely and quickly. [From: The New York Times]

Tags: activism, bp, environment, facebook, GulfOfMexico, oil, OilSpill, public relations, PublicRelations, SocialMedia, SocialNetworking, top, twitter

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