I first read of the Nestlé Facebook fan page meltdown, in Joshua Weinberger’s brilliantly titled post on the CRM Magazine blog.

Two days after Josua’s post, Nestlé is still incurring the wrath of a steady stream of folks who, well, just don’t like Nestlé or what they do.  I admit to not being very aware of the company’s business practices, but I have heard about them over the last 30 years or so.  My point is not a political commentary about Nestlé, but about the fragility of the social web.

This incident should be a wake-up call for marketers who are dabbling in the new media without really understanding the implications and having a comprehensive plan.  Just because all this looks easy doesn’t mean that the social community is a simple target for marketing campaigns.   One slip up can turn things from “semi-sweet to dark”.

It will take Nestlé a while to recover from this.  They don’t seem to be responding on the fan page.  Should be interesting to watch.

photo credit: @jackeliiine