The Social Media Bomb: Image from TechFresh.net

Yesterday, we discussed the a major fear some companies have about social media and content marketing : bungling it up so badly it hurts their business. It turns out that, while embarrassing and anxiety-inducing, the bottom-line can often escape the wrath of social media snarking relatively unscathed. With social media and web content, it’s more about what you have to gain than what you have to lose.

But that said, how your company reacts to a blunder is an opportunity for growth. As mentioned in our article about the Midol Mom Controversy, now that you’ve goofed, all eyes are on you. How you react, especially early on, can make big difference to your reputation (uhh … no pressure or anything).

Here are a few tips (some are classic public relations lessons) you can use early on in a Social Media Crisis to keep yourself afloat (and as always, we should stress that consulting with a content marketing company with PR experience is always beneficial. /Plug):

Make Monitoring A Priority

• Just because it’s a weekend or holiday, it doesn’t mean you’re off duty. Check into Twitter or Google Hot Trends daily and set alerts so that you know if your company is being talked about
• If you have a larger company or the staff to handle it, create policies that see your customer service staff involved in social media by becoming involved in monitoring and reporting
• Take a look at our tips on How To Become an Informavore

Get Accountable

• If your company has a Twitter, Facebook or other social media account, it’s a good idea for more than one person to have access to its password. The last thing you need is the one person who runs it to be off camping when trubs in brewing
• Identify who’s doing the talking. Once you put a name to the person behind the Tweets, you have a better chance of humanizing your company, the mistake and the message

Timing is Everything

• Even if you don’t know exactly what needs to be said, immediately acknowledge that there’s an issue or that you’ve heard concerns. Crisis communicators who work for an airline have an industry standard of issuing the first communication to the media within 30 minutes of a major incident. They don’t have all the details yet (and they admit that) but they let people know they’re “on it” right away
• Motrin issued a blanket apology statement on the Sunday of the “crisis” and another more personal one on the Monday. Many people on the internet complained that this came too late

Bring it to the Tweeple

• If the rumblings are on Twitter, go to Twitter. If rumblings are stemming from a blog post, go to the blog. Yes, sending a press release may be a step you take – but not after first talking with the upset people where they’re “at”
• Don’t just talk to people, talk with them. Reply, respond, ask questions. This medium allows you to do all of that, so use it
• Acknowledge if people have a point, a good idea or have inspired your next moves. Individuals like being credited for their thoughts, especially when the one doing the crediting is a big company

Say The S-Word

• Did you really do wrong? Say something offensive? Accidentally or inadvertently cause some hurt? Say sorry – and mean it. It needs to be from YOU – not from the board or committee in charge of crafting messages. This was the e-mail Motrin sent directly so some of the most vocal bloggers who were incensed by Motrin’s ad (which some complained as still being too scripted):

I am the Vice President of Marketing for McNeil Consumer Healthcare. I have responsibility for the Motrin Brand, and am responding to concerns about recent advertising on our website. I am, myself, a mom of 3 daughters.

We certainly did not mean to offend moms through our advertising. Instead, we had intended to demonstrate genuine sympathy and appreciation for all that parents do for their babies. We believe deeply that moms know best and we sincerely apologize for disappointing you. Please know that we take your feedback seriously and will take swift action with regard to this ad. We are in process of removing it from our website. It will take longer, unfortunately, for it to be removed from magazine print as it is currently on newstands and in distribution.

Up next: How do take your Social Media Recovery to the next level – endear people through your make-better actions!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 4:24 pm and is filed under Content Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.