DailyBlogr - Social Media Case Study : Hotel forced to abandon concert due to Twitter outrage

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Barasti Beach Bar, a popular hangout restaurant and bar in Dubai, probably had no clue that the Twitter community in Dubai would do something outrageous like this to them. Vanilla Ice – The popular artist was supposed to perform at the hotel on March 31st evening and invitations were sent, tickets booked. Unfortunately, a day before the concert (on March 30th) the current UAE’s president’s brother Sheikh Ahmed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, of the royal family passed away in a fatal glider crash, and a three day mourning was declared in the region.

There was confusion as to whether the concert will be conducted during the mourning days. To many people’s surprise, Barasti Beach Bar sent out an SMS on March 31st saying “NORMAL OPERATION. WE ARE NOT DRY! NICE, NICE BABY! 5PM-3AM C U ON THE SAND” confirming that the concert will go on as planned and hinting that there will still be alcohol served. But many people thought this SMS was dis-respectful in nature and tweeted about it.

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For around 3 hours, there was a complete outrage on Twitter following this tweet, while many people thought the SMS was indeed dis-respectful and could have been avoided. Discussions came up on the #Barasti hash tag with many people demanding apologies and even demanding a cancellation of the concert.

Well, after around 3 hours, the pub had to cancel their concert, (that’s 4 hours prior to the show) due to the Twitter outrage alone ! Phew, so much for social media power.

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What’s interesting is that the beach bar, already had its presence on facebook and Twitter. But they never communicated well with the community. They were “mostly” preaching accounts where updates were tweeted in a one-way-communication sort of. In my opinion this is a perfect example that shows how not to do social media. Just being on Twitter and Facebook isn’t enough. Of course, they might have listened to all the discussions, but never did have the balls to jump in and take responsibility of the situation or did bother to communicate. And this is the result.

Just goes out to say that, social media is a powerful community, but only if you are involved with it as a brand, would you make the best use of it, or else you’ll end up being a dumb account, good for nothing, like in this pubs case.

What do you think would have been a better strategy for the pub ? A better crisis management solution ?

Related posts:

1. 10 Reasons why brands fail on Twitter / Social Media
2. How to change domain name without losing traffic (Case study)
3. 25 Social Media Consultants you should follow on Twitter

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