What You Can Learn from This Restaurant’s Epic Facebook Meltdown

Anyone watching “Kitchen Nightmares” starring Gordon Ramsey a couple weeks ago in the episode featuring Amy and Samy Bouzaglo of Amy’s Baking Company in Scottsdale, Ariz. must still be shaking their heads in amazement for the social media fiasco that has ensued. It seems the owners didn’t think much of the recommendations proposed by the often outspoken Ramsey, but then took to their Facebook page to start an all-out flame war with their critics, huge numbers of Reddit commenters that descended upon their page, and at last count have left some 45,000 comments. This ended up being a classic lesson in how NOT to do social media. The consistently stubborn owner Amy, joined in by her husband, opened fire in an epic flaming match with all the commenters, complete with salty language in all caps, to boot. There is little doubt they’ll be dealing whith this for a long time, as almost all of the comments were, how should we say, less than complimentary. This was an epic social media train wreck if there ever was one.

Review: What not to do on Facebook

In a sober celebration of this meltdown, we thought it might be smart to go over some the fundamentals regarding how you should comport oneself on a social media site like Facebook.

  • Always address complaints, but in a civil manner.
  • NEVER get into a flaming match with a poster. YOU WILL LOSE!
  • Correct whatever is incorrect or misstated, but be sure to keep your head about you. No confrontations!
  • Try and maintain a sense of humor. Sharks smell blood in the water…
  • Be professional, generous, and watch controversy die on the vine.
  • Do not end up cursing or confronting. If you want to scream a name at someone, hold back until you get in the shower!
  • Don’t share a lot of your own personal information, but do let your personality glow!

While Amy’s Baking Company is far from the first to actively engage with their fans in entirely the wrong way, (see Nestle) it apparently wasn’t their first rodeo. They got into it with a Yelp reviewer in 2010, and the negative comments are still coming in!