The flash mob and social firestorm can be considered a risk for any major brand actively engaging online. Examples from Motrin to Amazon to Dominos have gotten huge coverage in both marketing trade media and the mainstream media as the social media fear machine kicks into high gear.
In other words, we seem to be living in an environment where information, misinformation, and emotional reactions can spread like wildfire. Brands, brand managers, and communications executives alike struggle with how to adapt to this changeable environment.
No, communications and brands can no longer be ‘controlled’, but were they ever? The visible and trackable portions were. But as many have observed, social technologies make the discussion and conversation patterns that have happened for generations visible, searchable, shareable and referable. For brand managers and communicators, this changes how they will need to operate on a few levels.
1. Companies will need to become more open to, and tolerant of brand and communications mentions that are not positive. We all know that things happen and these are great learning experiences. As we learned from Watergate it’s not the incident, it’s the cover-up, or today, the lack of follow up. It’s amazing how much rancor can be defused by simply starting a dialogue and being open to feedback. One of the best channels for this given its increasing popularity is Twitter.
2. Companies will need to learn to mitigate risk by developing online programs that involve customers in the marketing process, so they can act as the first front of social media defense when (and if) social eruptions happen, AND to understand attitudes toward changing external and internal circumstance. If Facebook, for example, had groups of users they monitor and engage when introducing new products or features, the Beacon, TOS and new design faux pas would probably never have happened.
3. Companies need to learn how to distinguish between meaningful dialogue and froth. Emotional issues in particular, such as babywearing, can spread quickly without being fully understood. Does the conversation relate directly back to the brand? Is the issue fully understood? How do customers react vs. the larger audience?
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