What to Do When Web 2.0 Delivers Brand Indigestion
- Thu, April 16 2009
- Filed under: Social networking and web 2.0
If you haven’t heard, two employees of Dominos caused the company a lot of heartburn this week with their gross-out YouTube video that included a worker putting cheese up his nose and then on a sandwich. The whole tale is here and here (register for AdAge-good reading). It had hundreds of thousands of views before Dominos reacted - with a good message in the right venue (on YouTube, where this started), though the president’s “delivery” was a little stiff and his camera eye contact was poor.
So what if this kind of web 2.0 debacle happens to you? What if people do something online that hurts your organization? What if they say mean things? Here’s what I recommend.
1. BE LISTENING FOR IT: Be sure you have Google Alerts set up to monitor what people are saying about your organization online. Keep tabs on Twitter (via Tweetbeep, for example) and YouTube.
2. WHEN YOU FIND SOMETHING DREADED, ASSESS WHO IS SAYING IT AND WHO IS LISTENING. Is this one crazy person with no audience? You may want to wait and watch. Or is it someone who talks to people in your audience? Even one noisy person can be a problem if they have or can rapidly build a following with people who matter to you. Or if the traditional media picks up on their diatribe. I generally err on the side of judging someone worth responding to rather than ignoring them.
3. ACT FAST ON THE SPOT WHERE IT STARTED: If you need to respond, do it now, IN THE VENUE where the situation started. Slow reactions are bad reactions. Things move at light speed on web 2.0 and you don’t want something to spiral out of control before you get in a response. It’s okay if you don’t have all the answers or every piece of needed information - just be TRANSPARENT about it. “I’m really concerned with this and looking into it” is better than radio silence. “I’m concerned our staff said that to you and am finding out what happened so I can give you the response you deserve” is better than nothing. Dominos was right to respond to the video on YouTube - and to put spokespeople out there where ever it’s getting airtime. By responding to a Tweet on Twitter, you ensure rapid communication as well as achieve the potential to keep the controversy within the community in question. (Hence achieving a tempest in a twitterpot.)
4. BE HONEST, TRANSPARENT, FRIENDLY AND NONDEFENSIVE: This is key. If there is misinformation out there, correct it in a helpful, non-combative way. My organization’s own crisis communications plan (hope you have one, too) sets out the following principles if we’ve made a mistake:
-Be sincerely and profusely apologetic if we’ve done wrong.
-Take responsibility.
-Err on the side of open, frequent communication.
-Be absolutely honest.
-Ensure what we way is accurate - if we’re not sure, say we’re not sure.
-Do all we can to fix problems and mitigate harm.
-Say what we’re doing to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
That last one is important.
5. REMEMBER IT IS A CONVERSATION: This isn’t a monologue by the critic or by you nor (hopefully) is it a war—it’s a conversation. When you respond, be open to reactions and answer questions. You can’t post one response and call it a day, you need to keep tabs on the situation and participate in the ongoing conversation.
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