Poster presented at the third International Conference on Social Informatics(Oct. 6-8, 2011) in Singapore. This case study and analysis is done by Jaram Park, Hoh Kim, Dr. Meeyoung Cha, and Dr. Jaeseung Jeong.

1. CEO’s apology in Twitter:
A case study of the fake beef labeling incident by E-Mart
Jaram Park Hoh Kim Meeyoung Cha Jaeseung Jeong
Graduate School of Culture Technology, KAIST
Motivation Case
We conduct a case study using Twitter data to  Jul. 27 2010: E-Mart branch was caught
answer the following: selling imported beef as domestic beef.
 Twitter users requested that CEO directly
take care of the issue.
 Should a CEO apologize on social media for the
 Jul. 28 2010 : CEO apologized on his tweet.
mistake?
 If a CEO apologizes, would it help or hurt the
corporate’s reputations?
 Is there a right timing and tone of voice of an
effective apology?
Fake beef labeling CEO’s apology
Methodology and Result
All tweets that mentions the word “E-Mart” Result
Exposure Apology
 LIWC(Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count)
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 Score:  The apology has more influence on
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decreasing negative sentiment rather than
Original Text Positive Negative increasing positive sentiment.
YongJin Chung apologized on his twitter
11.11 0
yesterday. it's cool.
 The apology was more effective to CEO’s
When I heard fake labeling beef incident,
I 'm really disappointed in E-MART 0 14.29 followers than non-followers.
Conclusion
 Using social media, companies can analyze consumers' sentiments not only towards brands,
but also specific issues/crisis.
 For a better crisis reaction in social media, leaders should build relationship with social media
users before crisis, not after.