Tag: Facebook

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BSP Advice Column – Sunset Strip Brewery

As far as interwebs hoaxes go, this was well done. But for the sake of future brewers who feel entitled my original (April Fool’d) post still stands. So in honor of a good joke, here is what I would have written if Sunset Strip Brewing were real……

I don’t think I could survive long giving out advice. Oh, I have opinions and ideas and sarcasm but those qualities are not usually top of the list for future Dear Abby’s. But when I saw this pop up on my social media feed….
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After thinking to myself, “Who is Sunset Strip Brewery?” and then doing a cursory Google search which turned up more hits for the fantastic Sunset Beer Co. bottle shop, I began to think of scenarios that would lead to this Tweet. (I ran into the same issue when I first heard about them months back.

Drunken?  Nope.  Posted at 10am with correctly spelled @ call signs with capitalization too.

Frustration? Maybe, but no one reached out to me and I doubt that any or all of the organizations listed would have refused to run something.

Internal Strife? Seemed most likely since the biggest stressor in L.A. is the getting your brewery open process but without information I let the issue drop and planned to wait to try beer if it ever came to be.

Well, first the Tweet was denied and labeled a hack, then this happened….
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…and the BSP Advice columnist in me jumped up.

There is so much wrong in that “non”-apology. But let’s first write the correct response:
Hello, my name is Mark and I want to apologize for a member of the Sunset Strip Brewery team who made ill-advised remarks on social media.  The remark has been taken down and we are dismayed that it even saw the light of day. It is not how we want to present ourselves to the fans of craft beer in L.A.

We hope, in the coming months, to spread the word about our brewery and our ambitious plans in  a positive way and even more we hope to share our beer with the City of Los Angeles sooner rather than later.

If you want to talk to us then please contact us at the e-mail address below.

Literally, except for the first sentence, every other paragraph in “their apology” had something horribly wrong in it.  (Not to mention some spelling gaffes).  Just as an FYI to future brewers out there, what NOT to do:

paragraph two – “those of you who that said things you regret will take responsibility for it” / An apology does not ask for an apology back.

paragraph three – “We have a combined 50 years plus brewing experience.” / An apology should not be cribbed from your About page of your website.

paragraph four – “We’re currently in talk(s) with producers about television opportunities” / An apology should be brief and not about plans unrelated to the actual beer.

paragraph five – All of it. / An apology does not reinforce whatever was said that made an apology necessary.

paragraph six – “reasonably priced t-shirts” / An apology should have some remorse.  Not vague swag promises.

paragraph seven – “abuse and cyber bullying we received” / An apology does not include mitigating factors.

I will try the beer but, frankly, it would have to be really damn good for me to write about it.  Right now LA has such good beer flowing that I do not have time to visit the people and places I enjoy, let alone drink beer from people who don’t understand how to communicate a simple apology. And this episode speaks to how disorganized this group is and leads me to think that they probably won’t even make it to the brewing stage at all.

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The Firkin for May 2015

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Two emojis and ten words. That is all it took for an employee who was the Digital Communications Manager for the NBA’s Houston Rockets to get fired.

That tweet which if uttered, minus the emojis, on a court by a player may have garnered a technical foul or a dinky fine. The joke was of the sore winner variety.  A heat of the moment stupid little thing that the interwebs throw around like superheroes toss super villains through buildings.

It is also basically what is chronicled via different examples in the new Jon Ronson book, “So you have Been Publicly Shamed”.  Which should be required reading for anyone with a Twitter account or friends of the non-computer variety. The take-away: Employees + poor communication of a brand is a bad mixture. And it is happening in craft beer now too.

Example #1

Despite it being baseball and boring, Padre fans got into a dust up on Instagram this month when Saint Archer Brewing thanked the Dodgers for being a big supporter (buyer) of the brewery. The passive-aggressive dig being that their hometown teams aren’t buying for their stadiums.

Was Saint Archer rightly upset about not on offer at Qualcomm and Petco? Probably.  Did they communicate that anger it in a way that exemplifies the brand. Not even close. All they did was alienate consumers on the fence and give haters a chance to hate.

You have to be crystal clear in your writing. Tone and humor get lost without any context to place them in. And I strongly suggest making each post as simple as possible and directed at a target audience. For Saint Archer it could go like this: Instagram that your beer is available at Dodger Stadium. Then a tweet aimed at Padre fans with the dates when they play in LA and can buy their beer. Then a third post with a link to where you can drink their beer in San Diego before or after the game since you can’t get it inside the ballpark.

It may be super neutral but it gets your point across unless your goal is to rattle the cage. Which is certainly a way to go but one fraught with paying someone to defuse any situations that get out of hand.

Example #2

Then Stone Brewing, who usually walk the line of cheeky as well as anyone joined the passive-aggressive rock throwing with a press release and label diatribe against those who copy and paste and Tweet about their beers. (Obviously shortened from the long-winded Stone PR version. 
They added this gem to the end of their press release about Bourbon Barrel Aged Arrogant Bastard: “Notice how this release does not do your work for you. I understand you are overworked and underpaid, but you will have to write this one up yourself. It’s called “journalism,” not “copy and paste-ism.” For better or worse, I trust in you. I truly hope you share that trust in yourself.”

I don’t know how re-running a press release is a crime.  I thought that was why press releases were sent out. Personally, I always skipped down to the tasting notes and what Mitch Steele has to say about the beer and what food it pairs with because it was helpful information. Then, maybe, skimmed the superfluous word-ery on top. It makes one wonder if this is an official Stone position or the opinion of one person in marketing who doesn’t like blogs that run press releases. 

In both instances, being passive-aggressive doesn’t work. It hardly works in real conversation between actual people.  Let alone on the web. Stone should have gritted their teeth and sent out the usual release for one simple reason.  The beer should have done the talking not a PR person. 

No matter the form of communication, whoever is in charge of getting information out to people need to be aware that their words and attitude will soon reverberate in the echo chamber of the interwebs. 

Mis-steps happen on social media and they will continue to happen as long as people see it as fun and not at all harmful. Either hire a professional firm and educate them on your beer and brewery or hire your own person who isn’t allowed to hit send on anything unless someone else looks at it.  Like a check that needs two signatures to be valid. 

That former Rocket?  He later spoke about how the tweet was responded to was not what he wanted but he owned up about how he alone was responsible for how it was received. He then said the magic words, don’t underestimate the power and reach of social media.