Amy’s Baking Company – Social Media Etiquette and Advice For People That Desperately Need It

Gordon Ramsey has a show on Fox called “Kitchen Nightmares,” where struggling or failing restaurants come to be saved. I am assuming restaurants approach him, versus the other way around, and I am thinking they do this for at least two reasons: 1. To get actual help for a business that really needs it, and 2. To get some high-profile publicity. Mr. Ramsey’s show has been on the air since 2007, a fact of which I’ve been blissfully unaware. Anyway, as it is a “reality show,” I am sure the show’s producers chop up and paste together the footage to suit their needs, paint people in the light they want them to be in, and basically manipulate the story to their end. Lots of drama, yelling, slamming of fists on tables… Gordon Ramsey is not the quiet type.

And yet, for the first time ever, he walked off a show in production and said, “You people simply cannot be helped. You’re an impossible case. I’m OUTS.” He’s British; I’m paraphrasing.

After the episode aired, the fine folks at Reddit began having a field day with it. I guess Amy and Samy took exception to the fun being poked at them and melted down HARD on Facebook. This is not the first faux pas I’ve seen a company make on social media, but the breadth and depth of this freakout was notable. Multiple posts, cursing, name calling, ALL CAPS diatribes, directly interacting with people and calling them the worst of worst names… it took Facebook by storm.

Anyway, I had a chance to briefly talk about it on Fox 2 Now with Angela Hutti. My main piece of advice here was to sleep on it. This was not one of those crises that required an immediate response. No one likes to be ganged up on and called stupid and horrible. The Yelp reviews started getting so mean and fictional – just absolutely crazy things being said. As a business owner, this would infuriate me. And it’s possible that I’d be so angry, a night’s rest would do nothing for me. However, I have typed angry emails and saved as a draft, and each time I did so, I changed up the email the next day. NEVER have I said, “Yeah, that crazy stuff, sounds like exactly what I want to convey.” Rather, I’ve softened up the message every single time I’ve slept on it. If the crisis does not call for swift response, try responding after you’ve cooled down. Your calm brain thinks so differently than your agitated brain.

Here’s a page on Huffington Post with many screenshots (WARNING: graphic language), and here’s a Buzzfeed article with much of the same. Note: both contained Youtube versions of the show, but those videos have since been taken down.

Here’s a link to the story on Fox2Now, in case the embedded video above chooses not to cooperate.