Week 9: Misuse of Social Media -- Amy’s Baking Company

When we talk about ethics or misusing social media, the first epic case is the Amy’s Baking Company in Scottsdale, Ariz, which was in one of the episodes of “Kitchen Nightmares”in May 2013. 

Here is the story. Amy and Samy Bouzaglo are the owner of the Amy’s Baking Company, who face some problems on their commercial trading and joined the famous show Kitchen Nightmares for revenue up. However, the host of the show – Gordon Ramday walked off the program after the couple's antics and finger pointing proved insurmountable challenges. When the episode published on air, it raised a wide public reaction. People start to follow their Yelper, Reddit and Facebook pages and some of them left so-called negative feedback. Since then, Amy and Samy started to strike back. 

But unfortunately, after few messages, their words somehow went beyond the bottom line.

The interesting point is, they claimed they were hacked.  But this didn't stop the improper official messages make the fire worse. 

In this part I would like to refer to Rogerson’s 8 ethical principles: 

• Consideration of social cost - is the appropriate accountability and responsibility accepted with respect to this action?

• Effective and efficient action - is the action suitable, given the objectives set, and is it to be completed using the least expenditure of resources?

The improper reaction of Amy’s Baking Company shows a poor marketing strategy.  First, they used social platforms for expressing in the view of themselves rather than the business. Arguing and debating with people who might be potential customers obviously are not the most effective and efficient action they could apply. The aggressive personality also should not be involved into the official response of negative opinion. Moreover, the owner themselves did not fully considering the social cost. Or maybe they did, somehow, as now they are the most epic “insane star” in the food business all over the world, who yelling to their customer even on a TV show. But, at least they did not understand the power of the social media. For example, the yelpers could bring you more customers but also may destroy your business. 

Obviously, the improper reaction of Amy’s Baking Company damaged their reputation. And due to improper use of social platforms, it goes worse and worse. But it did raise their publicity, thousands of people hear about them and following their news and social media pages. 

For recommendation, they do need a public relation professional to help them dealing with the misuse of social platforms and rebuild customer relationships in the long term. Otherwise, this dilemma will go on all the way.