Logan Paul and YouTube, 2018
- Logan Paul, with more than 15 million subscribers, posted a video from Japan's "suicide forest" that showed a body. He deleted it after the backlash.
- The next week, YouTube answered:
“In light of recent events, we have decided to remove Logan Paul's channels from Google Preferred.”
- It also dropped him from season 4 of Foursome and put his new Originals on hold. His channel stayed up.
- For a brand: you pay for everything a creator posts, including the videos that have nothing to do with you. Read their recent posts before every renewal.
Floyd Mayweather, DJ Khaled and Centra Tech, 2018
- Both promoted coin offerings on social media without saying they'd been paid. Centra Tech paid Mayweather $100,000 and Khaled $50,000.
- The SEC charged both in November 2018. They settled without admitting or denying it, and Mayweather agreed to pay a $300,000 penalty, Khaled $100,000.
“Investors should be skeptical of investment advice posted to social media platforms”
- For a brand: the payment has to be said in the post itself. A regulator can come for the people in the post as well as the company.
Snapchat and Rihanna, 2018
- An ad on Snapchat, from a game maker, asked users whether they'd rather slap Rihanna or punch Chris Brown.
- Rihanna answered on Instagram:
“You spent money to animate something that would intentionally bring shame to DV victims and made a joke of it!!!”
- Snap's stock fell around 4 percent that Thursday. Its apology named where it broke:
“We are so sorry we made the terrible mistake of allowing it through our review process.”
- For a brand: a famous person can answer you in public within hours. Have one person read every post and ad before it goes live, and give them the right to say no.
What the three have in common
- Each one started with a post nobody stopped in time.
- Each company had to answer in public within days.
- Each fix was a decision someone could have written down ahead of time: who reviews, who pauses, who speaks. That's a social media crisis plan.