BP Using Social Media to Fight for Its Brand’s Life (and doing well).

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With a massive oil slick moving closer to Louisiana’s ecologically fragile coastline, BP could forever be linked to the destruction of North America’s priceless wetlands.

It seems that BP executives recognize the potential deathblow to their brand story.  They have put on a full-court press through the cable news networks.  They’ve cracked open their profit war chest to pay for clean-up and deployed imaginative engineering feats to cap the gushing leaks.

But, whats caught my eye has been BP’s remarkably astute use of twitter to feed the news media with relevant sound bites.  Following the #oilspill hastag will give you a front-row seat to the oil spill drama and how BP is keeping the public informed (and protecting it’s brand story).

For most global conglomerates, this early effort would be considered sufficient.  But BP has decided to double-down on its response by devoting it’s website to educating the public on its response.  Add a hastily erected Facebook page and you get the feeling that BP wants to be in the middle of the storm and not reacting from the fringes.

Now, it would be easy for me to criticize the men and women working at BP.  But, I’m going to take a pass this time – for one reason: BP seems to care about making sure I’m informed about what they are doing to halt and recover from this disaster.

I’m not in the dark.  I know more about Containment domes, Blowout Preventers, Oil booms, controlled burn-offs, ROVs and deep sea salvage and repair then I’ve ever did – courtesy of BP.

With BPs timely efforts, they are reinforcing it’s painstakingly constructed story of an energy company with an environmental conscience.  They know what’s on the line and they’ve employed social media to “Share and Show” their commitment to being a good corporate citizen.

I would go as far as to say that other companies could take a cue from BP (hint: Nestle)

So rather than joining the irate chorus, I am going to simply say – “Thanks BP and Keep Me Informed”