How to control social media damage

 How to control social media damage 

Damage Control

Throughout this  blog

I’ve focused on the positive impact your social media

program can have on your fans and on the company’s image. We’ve explored

best practices and sought to learn from some of the most inspiring examples and

case studies across different industries.

But when talking about social media operations, we can’t neglect disaster

preparedness. It’s one of the unpleasant but vital responsibilities of a social

media team: you must anticipate the worst and know how to respond to it to

defuse a situation and prevent it from worsening.

Quite simply, your team must respond quickly to any developments in your

online community and in social media at large. And when you identify the

earliest beginnings of a scandal or public relations disaster, you must quickly

escalate it to more senior folks in the company—with recommendations for how

to resolve it.

To get you in the right frame of mind, here are a few examples of brand-

bludgeoning social media screw-ups—some of which were nipped in the bud,

some of which were mishandled and went viral.

KitchenAid Disses Obama’s Dead Grandma: When Barack Obama, in

the opening debate of the 2012 election, remarked that his grandmother

never lived to see him elected, a snarky tweet from the mixer manufacturer

KitchenAid joked, “Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! She died

3 days b4 he became president!” The tasteless and partisan tweet set up a

firestorm of angry retweets and coverage from Mashable, CNN, USA

Today, and others. The offensive tweet was actually from a KitchenAid

social media rep accidentally tweeting under the corporate account rather

than a personal one. Although KitchenAid promptly deleted the tweet and

tried to explain it away, the reputational damage was done. Senior brand

manager Cynthia Soledad was forced to take the reins in the middle of the

night, apologizing for the mistake and reaching out to journalists to tell

KitchenAid’s side of the story.

No one here knows how to f#*!ing drive”: In a similar story in 2011, an

update appeared on the Chrysler Twitter account that inflamed both

consumers and Chrysler alike. The tweet read, “I find it ironic that Detroit

is known as #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f#*!ing drive.”

Chrysler responded quickly by deleting the tweet, posting an apology and

explaining that its account had been compromised. What had happened was

that an employee of New Media Strategies, Chrysler’s social agency,

inadvertently tweeted under the @ChryslerAutos account instead of his

personal account. The employee was fired, and Chrysler did not renew its

contract with New Media Strategies.

Red Cross #gettngslizzerd: The American Red Cross posted this

embarrassing message to its Twitter account: “Ryan found two more 4

bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas touch beer…. when we drink we do it

right #gettngslizzerd.” Soon it was being retweeted, and within an hour the

Red Cross social media director had gotten wind of it. She promptly deleted

the errant post and defused the incident by sending this humorous 

Tweet:

“We’ve deleted the rogue tweet but rest assured the Red Cross is sober and

we’ve confiscated the keys.” The speedy and good-natured response saved

the day.

#McDStories: McDonald’s attempt at promoting the fast food chain via a

promoted hashtag campaign on Twitter backfired when users coopted the

tag to post 140-character tweets sharing horror stories and blasting the food.

Forbes covered the story with the headline “When a Hashtag Becomes a

Bashtag.” Rick Wion, McDonald’s social 

media director, admitted: “Within

an hour, we saw that it wasn’t going as planned. It was negative enough that

we set about a change of course.

Dub the Dew: Mountain Dew built a website and turned to crowd-source

voting to name its new green-apple soda. Problem was, tech-savvy users of

the online bulletin board 4chan.org took control and pushed to the top such

offensive and brand-damaging suggestions as “Diabeetus” and “Hitler did

nothing wrong.” Mountain Dew was forced to take down the site and

scuttle the entire promotion.

United Breaks Guitars: In 2008, professional musician Dave Carroll sat in

a United Airlines jet on the tarmac preparing to leave Chicago O’Hare,

when he and fellow passengers noticed baggage handlers roughly throwing

luggage—including Carroll’s $3,500 Taylor guitar. When he landed, Carroll

found his guitar had been destroyed. He spent the next year fighting

fruitlessly to get United to pay for his guitar. Then he gave up and resorted

to YouTube, uploading a series of funny music videos entitled “United

Breaks Guitars.” The videos went viral, reaching over 16 million views, and

even resulted in a book and speaking tour for Carroll. United finally

apologized and donated $3,000 to a charity of Carroll’s choice. But by then,

much damage to the airline’s public image (and probably its business) had

already been done.

Corporate social media disaster tales run the spectrum, but I see just a handful of

root causes:

1. Operational sloppiness: Lack of quality control, preparedness, oversight,

systematic processes, or structure. The ease and speed of publishing to

social media is both a blessing and a curse. Adopting strong editorial

systems and CRM processes and controls will minimize the likelihood of

all-too-public mistakes.

2. Failure to move at Internet speed: The social media environment is fast-

moving and consumer controlled. Globally, social delivers trillions of

impressions and intercommunications every second; in 2012, for example,

the NFL Superbowl alone inspired over 10,000 tweets a second. Inaction

can turn a relatively unremarkable complaint into a viral fiasco. Monitor

your brand constantly. React speedily to any trending crisis. Never assume

“it will just go away.” Be ready to apologize and provide honest

explanations or remedies. Be humble, personal, authentic, and don’t be

afraid to be funny if the situation warrants it.

3. Tone deafness: The landscape of social media is emotional. Fan pages of

cherished brands, large or small, can feel like a lovefest. But some brands

and industries are polarizing, as in the McDonald’s example above.

Sometimes they’re downright hated—think Wall Street investment banks,

oil companies, cable companies, cell phone carriers. Whether planning a

major campaign or executing daily wall-management, hope for the best but

prepare for the worst. Not everyone loves you. Haters are gonna hate. Be

attuned to public sentiment and to the cultural vibe of each social media

platform. Be a good listener—be open to hearing problems and issues from

your consumers and resolving them publicly. Don’t be passive. Help shape

the tone of the conversation playing out in your fan communities. Prepare

and post “house rules” as a tab on your Facebook page, and delete posts

that are profane, hateful, abusive, or otherwise violate your rules.

Completely sanitizing the conversation in social media would be unwise

(and impossible). But it’s your right and responsibility to keep your

company’s social media communities on topic and brand supportive.

The bottom line: bad things can happen to good brands out there. Be alert, be

prepared, take responsibility, respond quickly. Don’t hesitate to show your

humanity or lighten a tense situation with a little humor.

Your Social Media Command Center

You’ve planned, budgeted, and staffed your social media operation. You’ve

invested in and mastered powerful social media software. You know what you

need now.

A social media command center, or SMCC.

Of course!

The digital marketing geek’s version of a “man cave,” the social media

command center, was hatched in June 2010 by PepsiCo in its Chicago

headquarters, for its Gatorade brand. Dubbed the “Gatorade Mission Control

Center,” it consisted of a centrally located, glass-walled room, glowing with the

light of six huge flat-screen monitors displaying social media visualizations from

Radian6 and IBM software. From there, command center staffers monitored

brand mentions and trending responses to Gatorade commercials and content

uploaded to YouTube and USTREAM.

The goal of the project, says Gatorade senior marketing director Carla Hassan, is

to “take the largest sports brand in the world and turn it into [the] largest

participatory brand in the world.”

Gatorade’s intense focus translates into blazing-fast responsiveness. When it

aired its “Gatorade has evolved” commercials, which featured music by rap artist. 

Important to notice:

This written by the owner blogger So read carefully you will get understandable profits.