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Making up (to a social media audience) isn't always hard to do. Image from eHow
To recap: We’ve talked about how a social media misstep probably won’t kill you – or even have that much of an effect on your revenues. We’ve also discussed some of the first steps you can make when the tweets are hitting the fan. How you act next to redeem yourself can actually mean more business than the original marketing effort could have ever given you.
Ultimately, it’s your “Making-Good Campaign” (also known as “What You Should Have Done In The First Place”).
You need to act quickly but also think long-term. By quickly, we mean same-day (in many cases). By long-term, we mean meaningful, permanent changes. Here are some examples of what you can do, largely taken from real-world case studies of companies that did it right:
- Have the right people said sorry yet? The higher-up, the better.
- Be humble, be human. Undoubtedly, you’ll want to consult with others (like PRs) on your messaging, but don’t go so far as to be scripted, insincere or disconnected from the issue.
- Get everyone in the company on the same page – from executives to customer service. Keep everyone in the loop on what happened, what’s happening now and what’s happening later.
- Make innovations to your product or service. What could you have done, product or service-wise, that would have avoided the issue?
- In 1982, a deranged individual was poisoning Tylenol bottles in the Chicago area. Johnson & Johnson recalled Tylenol capsules everywhere, the CEO took to the air to offer personal condolences and Tylenol became the first OTC drug to include tamper-resistant packaging (now a norm in the industry) – complete with an ad campaign to back it.
- Following its own debacle, JetBlue introduced the Bill of Customer Rights.
- Hire your biggest critic. More and more, companies have created positions of CSMO (Chief Social Media Officer), CBO (Chief Blogging Officer) and even CMO (Chief Mom Officer – it’s ok to roll your eyes a little at that one) – and have plucked candidates straight from their hate mail.
- Reach out to the community you ostracized. Companies have gone on to sponsor events, set up scholarships or funds or made stronger efforts to provide what these audiences are looking for (such as a great online forum for parents, enhanced services, access to experts and so on). And they’re not just deciding these things – they’re listening to and engaging these audiences to find out what they say would be meaningful.
- And you already know that hiring a content marketing agency with PR experience to consult is a good idea, too, right?
Above all – explain what happened, what you’re doing now and what you will do (like the above ideas!) using the best channels possible (hint: it’s how the news broke of your scandal).
Tags: audience, public relations, social media
