In Cluetrain, one of their first examples of where the web will take us is about a car dealership that offers shoddy service getting bad publicity online and their business suffering as a result of online conversations. Word gets around.
WOM legend insists that a good experience will be shared with 5 friends whereas details of a bad experience will be shared with a circle double the size. This blog article on Influential Marketing
looks at steps you can take to limit damage from a ‘blog crisis’ (NB- Prevention is better than cure!)
On seeing this I had wanted to put this onto the Rubber Republic blog, but think the article is probably pertinent to all our companies.
In short, here’s what Rohit suggests:
- Identify the participants.
- Evaluate the conversation.
- Respond authentically.
- Publish your point of view.
- Monitor and respond to the conversation.
(Number 3 being the most important) (Or is it?)
Tags: blog crisis, influential marketing, Ogilvy, Rohit, Social capital, social media
I’d add speed into that too. All those traditional PR crisis models have that and it’s even more important over the ‘net.
It’s easy to see why some people prefer to hit the “Comments disabled” option when they create an online channel- does this mean that in future all major corporations will need something along the lines of a community manager as well as their more traditional PR people?
It’s great till the word ‘manage’ is involved as it denotes control to those parties. Co-op is key here I reckon. Community liason of some sorts. Traditional PR people are ready, willing and able to deal with publics over any channel, or so they should be. Same rules apply, just a new title for a new Web 2.0 era. Not much changes, just evolves.