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24 Sep 05:45am

Filed under: Media, Social Media, Twitter

The burgeoning social media landscape has brought with it frightening new possibilities for brand-trashing on a global scale: people using Twitter or blogs to spread derogatory remarks about your company; a disgruntled employee posting an “insiders” video on YouTube. You have no idea how it all started, and even less of an idea about how to stop it.

It seems every @tom, @dick or @harry can have an opinion.

In recent years some of the biggest US companies have experienced the ugly side of social media’s reach and a recent Australian survey showed one in four of us would boycott a product after reading negative comments on social media sites.

The reach and speed of social media can be astonishing. Just ask Comcast, America’s largest cable operator. One of their technicians was called to an apartment to install a new cable, only to fall asleep for an hour on the couch as he waited for a call back. The customer videoed him sleeping, posted it on YouTube and to date the image of Comcast at work has been viewed more than 1.3 million times.

Then we had a Burger King employee videoed bathing in the restaurant’s kitchen sink. The employee is now an ex-employee but the YouTube image lives on for anyone to watch. Similarly ex are the two Dominos Pizza employees who earlier this year posted a video showing them engaged in disgusting food preparation at a store. The employees later claimed it was all a joke and that none of the food they tampered with had been sold, but once again cyberspace ensures their handiwork lives on.

So what are the rules for handling crises in the age of social media? How can companies resurrect their reputations in the face of malicious postings? What do you do if someone posts a negative comment in Twitter?

Here are some steps to consider:

1: Get your company engaged in social media space, and now. Use it to find out what your customers think, when they are thinking it, who they share it with, and for directly corresponding with those customers. If your business is not already regularly listening to and perhaps conversing directly with customers and potential customers through social media – Twitter, YouTube, blogs, etc – then you are missing an opportunity.

2: When a crisis unfolds you must think and move quickly. Social media can move information at an exponential rate, so have your response out there as soon as possible to counteract and hopefully nullify the negative information. That’s another positive to already being engaged and having a presence, plus you don’t have to waste valuable time setting up Twitter and YouTube accounts or establishing a blog.

3: Ascertain just how big the problem is. There are a number of sophisticated tools that enable you to quantify the amount of chatter about any one subject. If it is merely a Twitter posting from a disgruntled customer, respond politely via Twitter; likewise a critical blog. Remember, this comment can be public too. The beauty of social media is that it allows you to respond directly and quickly, giving you the chance to explain your position, right a wrong or apologise. You can ask the complainant to contact you by phone, or even to meet face to face so that you can personally try to settle the matter. In the Australian survey mentioned above, 60 per cent of those surveyed said if they posted a negative comment about an organisation on social media they would welcome contact from the organisation.

4: If you are confronting a full-blown crisis then you must react in a similar manner. For that you may also need professional help. In the Dominos case, the company initially decided not to respond, hoping the incident would die down of its own accord. However, in just three days, more than a million people had viewed the video and the company’s reputation suffered. After absorbing that damage Dominos posted a message on its website and asked employees with Twitter accounts to tweet a link to the site. They established their own Twitter account and tried to reassure people that the practice in the video was totally aberrant. They filmed a message from the company’s president and put that on YouTube. These steps were all correct, but a couple of days too late, plus time was lost as they didn’t have an existing social media footprint.

5: Enlist your fans in the social media landscape. This could be your employees, friends, and clients – those that know the company and don’t share the negative sentiment. You can utilise Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and your blog to allow them to post their messages. Establish a page on your website where people can post messages and videos, to which you can direct traffic.

6: Keep monitoring the social media landscape. Find out whether the conversation is continuing or abating. Continue to have a voice and consider responding to incorrect information.

7: If you have a data base of customers, contact them to set the record straight, asking for their continued patronage. This could be offline or through other channels.

Not an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination, but a good start.

The tone and style is also important. Don’t preach. Don’t think of transmitting messages; instead participate in the conversation and allow people to engage and ask questions. Be informal and conversational. Your goal is to build a community (of fans), a community that can and will support you in trying times.

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17 comments

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- Liz says:
  
  08:09am | 24/09/09
  
  The joy of Twitter etc is that ordinary people can have their say and bad practice is publicised.I do hope you’re not expecting sympathy for the corporate world?
  
  Reply
- Dave Sag says:
  
  08:28am | 24/09/09
  
  @Liz the counter-side to that notion is that total idiots can say what they like online with seeming impunity. Stories in the MSM can be taken out of context, juxtaposed and blurred and fiction becomes fact, facts become irrelevant and the interwebs don’t care. Any fool can write a blog, and any other fool can tweet about how evil you are. They can say pretty much anything as libel laws expect damages and most of my t-shirts have more readers than most blogs, but Google sees all and even the most obscure blog post ends up on people’s iGoogle page.
  
  It’s genuinely hard to know how involved a company should be, ie how much money it should spend, on ‘social media’, or even on antisocial media. I too agree with Mr White’s general points however that companies should monitor social media for what’s being said about them. Every member of staff needs to have google alerts and tweet beeps running I believe.
  
  Reply
- Paul says:
  
  08:45am | 24/09/09
  
  Dealing with arrogant big companies is getting worse. Companies rarely listen anyway. I proudly bag out companies on twitter on my mobile, while they keep me hanging on phone queues. Karma is karma baby.
  
  Reply
- JD says:
  
  10:09am | 24/09/09
  
  Another vote for no sympathy. These corporations are spreading their rubbish on TV for all to see, and the little guy at home throwing his shoes at the screen everytime that ad comes on now has a way to reach people.
  
  Case in point, a certain shoe chain (Hint: Comfort comes from fit) refused to sell my partner sports orthotics for her shoes. Instead he tried to sell her a $300 pair of shoes. His reason? We run in Nike Free 5.0s because of the range of motion it allows our feet a fuller range of motion.
  
  He arrogantly shoved them in my partners face bending them as they’re designed to do and exclaimed that your feet shouldn’t bend like this when you’re running. Obviously he knows something that evolution doesn’t.
  
  The experience was compounded by the fact that the last pair of shoes I bought from them, on their advice, saw me injured and unable to run for 3 weeks afterwards.
  
  I don’t think people intentionally mislead about a company. Why would they? They might be confused by what has happened, misinterpret what’s been said, but that doesn’t make fiction fact. The fact is, that’s the experience one customer had, and nothing the corporation did resolved that, and the majority of the time, they actually inflamed it, which leads to the hateful vitriol spewing onto that persons blog and/or social media page in the first place.
  
  I have seen camera stores that do a very very good job of utilising social media, but they aren’t putting out spot fires, they do a very good job with their products and their service in the first place, they merely reinforce the message of how awesome they are.
  
  Reply
- Graham White says:
  
  10:34am | 24/09/09
  
  These tips apply equally to small businesses, so my post is not intended to be the domain of large corporates. It doesn’t have to be time consuming or intrusive. The key is using the tools are your disposal to know what people are saying. It is how you respond and the tone and transparency you use that will be important. There is a risk that you could dig a deeper hole, but equally, there is a good opportunity to regain some control and to get your point across. You will never please everyone, but if you can get your side of the story across, that is a start to an informed position.
  
  Reply
- Grant says:
  
  11:08am | 24/09/09
  
  Graham White
  
  All of the situations you mentioned, (especially Dominos) deserved to be exposed, and I am glad social media was there to do it.
  
  Your commentary is very transparent. You are spinning this, hopefully driving new businesses in to the arms of Howorth PR, Ogilvy PR with regards to the following comments about social media:
  
  “new possibilities for brand-trashing”
  “spread derogatory remarks about your company’
  “the ugly side of social media’s reach”
  “face of malicious postings”
  
  @the Punch, what are you doing? This is clearly promotion for Howorth PR and Ogilvy PR. There should be some sort of disclosure mentioned at the start of the article.
  
  Reply
- Chris says:
  
  11:17am | 24/09/09
  
  The trouble with the internet is people can publish opinion, incorrect damaging information and slander about a business or product no matter how unqualified they are.
  I have seen consumers who wanted something for nothing or special treatment make threats, then deliberately set out and slander my place of work on the net.
  
  Reply
- Annabey says:
  
  12:29pm | 24/09/09
  
  Grant,
  There is a link to Graham White’s bio at the top left of the story (near his photo) see: http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/graham-white/
  
  I have read a lot on social media and how companies and brands should (and should not) involve themselves as I also work in this space and advice clients on these sorts of issues (disclosure: I work for Bluegrass Consulting).
  
  This is a very informative post and provides some great practical advice that can be applied by all organisations.
  
  I am a huge fan of social media because of the transparency it creates and the accountability it is now forcing on organisations whether they like it or not! I agree with your tips, particularly point 1: “Get your company engaged in social media space, and now.”
  
  It surprises me just how many organisations are still yet to take up a social media presence to engage with or at least listen to their fans & critics! Not engaging or listening online is a very risky if you ask me…
  
  Reply
- Jolanda says:
  
  12:34pm | 24/09/09
  
  Some people are given no other option but to present their grievances on the internet because the system has set up the complaint handling practices and procedures in such a way that procedural fairness and natural justice doesn’t exist and this protects those who fail in their duty of care to our children and puts our children at risk of harm.
  
  A couple of years ago I was threatened in writing with defamation by the Crown Solicitor who acts on behalf of the Government and when I wrote back and asked them to be more specific as to what I was saying that they believe is defamatory as truth is a defense to defamation as it is if you believe it to be in the public interest they didn’t reply. I advised them that once they let me know exactly what it was that I was saying that was defamatory I would review my posts and my blog and if it was in fact defamatory I would apologize and make a retraction. As I never heard from them again I assume that they agree that what I say is the truth. If they take away people’s ability to speak out in relation to truths on the internet they destroy our freedom of speech and allow for the covering up of abuse and corruption.
  Education - Keeping them Honest -
  http://jolandachallita.typepad.com/education/
  Our children deserve better
  
  Reply
- xiaoecho says:
  
  12:35pm | 24/09/09
  
  We’ve ALL got a story of being done over by one behemoth or other. More power to the little guy twittering the truth—it’s about time the pendulum swung back towards the consumer
  
  Reply
- Rebecca says:
  
  12:45pm | 24/09/09
  
  This articles focus on how to broach negative media coverage - and internet coverage - is reasonable and informative, but I think its missing the most important point.
  
  These employees and their employers are in the wrong here, and if youtube, twitter and the various other communication sites are allowing the customer to ensure a better service, that’s a good thing.
  
  I’m not saying that individuals spreading slanderous statements across the web (about anyone) should be condoned, but rather that this is a great way to kill inappropriate behaviour in the work place.
  
  Yes, there are some wonderful points here about how to kill information that risks a company’s reputation, but if they were ensuring none of these events were taking place to begin with, there would be nothing to worry about.
  
  Reply
- Rebecca says:
  
  12:46pm | 24/09/09
  
  This articles focus on how to broach negative media coverage - and internet coverage - is reasonable and informative, but I think its missing the most important point.
  
  These employees and their employers are in the wrong here, and if youtube, twitter and the various other communication sites are allowing the customer to ensure a better service, that’s a good thing.
  
  I’m not saying that individuals spreading slanderous statements across the web (about anyone) should be condoned, but rather that this is a great way to kill inappropriate behaviour in the work place.
  
  Yes, there are some wonderful points here about how to kill information that risks a company’s reputation, but if they were ensuring none of these events were taking place to begin with, there would be nothing to worry about.
  
  Reply
- Rebecca says:
  
  12:46pm | 24/09/09
  
  This articles focus on how to broach negative media coverage - and internet coverage - is reasonable and informative, but I think its missing the most important point.
  
  These employees and their employers are in the wrong here, and if youtube, twitter and the various other communication sites are allowing the customer to ensure a better service, that’s a good thing.
  
  I’m not saying that individuals spreading slanderous statements across the web (about anyone) should be condoned, but rather that this is a great way to kill inappropriate behaviour in the work place.
  
  Yes, there are some wonderful points here about how to kill information that risks a company’s reputation, but if they were ensuring none of these events were taking place to begin with, there would be nothing to worry about.
  
  Reply
- JA says:
  
  12:57pm | 24/09/09
  
  Freedom of speech is a positive thing in concept. I think though that too many people tend to use it without engaging their brain, or without any ethical consideration.
  
  Reply
- Friar Tuck says:
  
  02:34pm | 24/09/09
  
  There is a sense of anonymity that people feel when they sit behind a keyboard and type (spray) away.
  Look at the garbage that people write, and then consider all the so called social media ‘experts’ Laurel Papworth and the like who continue to bang on about social media being a conversation.
  Well its not. If half the things people say on social media were said between people (consumers, whatever) in the street then there would be an almighty fight.
  The fact is, there are a variety of companies out there selling ‘listening’ platforms but none of these provide you with solutions and companies dont have the resources to sit there all day and sift through the information.
  Agreed at this is a well written advert for Ogle180 services. but good on em’.
  
  Reply
- Andrew says:
  
  03:13pm | 24/09/09
  
  If companies had processes in place so that the large majority of customers experienced a positive outcome, and then had appropriate complaint handling to handle the ones which fall through the cracks then there would be no problem.
  
  The problem is that companies don’t yet understand social media. There was once a time on the internet that every tom dick and harry had an opinion, but unless you where good friends (or friend of friend) with them you’d never find it, so if a company had less than ordinary service, you’d tell a few people, but the damage was contained.
  
  Now thanks to social media we hear about tom grivences, and if we have had less than desirable service from the same company it tarnishes the reputation of the company in a much larger way, and thanks to the way certain grivences can become viral companies now have a lot to fear (and gain) from social media.
  
  Reply
- MarK says:
  
  05:56pm | 24/09/09
  
  Heres a radical idea:
  How about not having products that suck
  How about caring about your customers/employees
  and not tyring to screw them over
  When you make a mixtake, this is the true test of serivce
  FIX IT
  I am sure that would do wonders to reduce disgrunteld customers
  
  Reply