Let's start by giving credit where credit is due: Within many companies, there is no more consistently innovative organization than the Marketing Department. Fifteen years ago, while everyone else was deriding the information superhighway as some overhyped playground for nerds, it was the Marketing group in many companies that advocated for the World Wide Web and found the budget to create the first corporate websites. And six years ago, while most executives were chuckling over their kids' obsession with MySpace and Facebook, it was likely the Marketing Department in your company that staked out the firms' social profile on social networks.

But while Marketing Departments may have controlled the first iteration or two of their companies' web sites, that time has now passed. Today, the Marketing Department has responsibility for driving traffic to the site and may control the corporate website's look and feel, but it is very unlikely (if your company is of a certain size) to own the content, the business functionality or the underlying technologies such as web content management, search, hosting, web analytics and the like. In other words, today Marketing brings its traditional strengths and capabilities in reach, scale and acquisition to the web, while other parts of the organization bring their own strengths.

Today, it is common for the Marketing function to own companies' social media accounts. In Spring, SmartBlog on Social Media asked "Who controls the social media efforts at your organization?" and over half the respondents noted their Marketing Department is responsible for social media. No other answer even came close--Public Relations was second with just 18% of the responses.

But in 2014, it is time for change. In the same way Marketing ceded control of corporate websites as the rest of the organization matured digitally, it is now time for Marketing to leave most aspects of social and earned media to others in the organization. That means that primary responsibility for social accounts, daily posting and organic content must shift out of marketing and to other departments, if this has not already occurred.

There are three reasons why this shift is occurring and will continue to do so in 2014:

Reason One: It Is Increasingly Difficult for Earned Media to Furnish the Reach Marketing Needs 

Earned media, that golden promise of the social era, is dying. You don't even need to examine data to know this--just look at the wave of whiny blog posts we have seen this year from marketers accusing Facebook of breaking promises. Apparently, marketers thought Facebook was going to be a place where basic consumer behavior changed: As more brands joined social media and increased their content marketing output, consumers who avoid ads in every other medium would suddenly welcome and engage with marketing content on Facebook.

Of course, that isn't what happened--people sign into Facebook and other social networks to see what friends, family and peers are up to, not to get marketing content. On Facebook, as more brands paid for access to users' news feeds, it was absolutely inevitable that brands would find it increasingly difficult to "earn" their way into fans' news feeds organically. (And if you think I am demonstrating 20/20 hindsight, feel free to read my blog post from almost two years ago, "Did Facebook Just Kill Earned Media?")

Ignite studied 689 posts across 21 brands; only one brand saw an increase in organic reach.

How difficult is it becoming to generate earned media on Facebook? Two recent studies demonstrate that engagement and penetration are sinking very quickly. Komfo found a 42% decrease in fan penetration from August to November, and an Ignite study revealed that in the week following Facebook's December 2nd news feed tweak, brand page organic reach declined by 44% on average. Ignite notes, "Facebook once said that brand posts reach approximately 16% of their fans. That number is no longer achievable for many brands, and our analysis shows that roughly 2.5% is now more likely for standard posts on large pages."

And if you think the earned media bloodletting is over, think again. The slow decline of earned media on Facebook will continue in 2014. Ad Age recently reported that Facebook is telling marketers, "We expect organic distribution of an individual page's posts to gradually decline over time as we continually work to make sure people have a meaningful experience on the site."

Make no mistake, the phenomenon of shrinking earned media is not just a Facebook issue. Facebook is on the cutting edge of social media because of its scale and longevity (not to mention investor expectations, with a market cap almost 50% greater than Twitter's, LinkedIn's and Yahoo's combined), so it provides a peek into the future of all social media. As more brands pay for access and as social networks strive to monetize, brands' earned media will get pushed aside.

Earned media is dead; long live paid media! Marketers should not mourn the loss of earned media but rejoice that their traditional skills and abilities are in ever higher demand. The need for paid media expertise in social media has never been higher and is going to continue growing. The Marketing Department is uniquely equipped to stay abreast of Facebook, Twitter and other social networks' rapidly evolving ad programs, develop and test targets and creative, and measure advertising success. Marketing can focus on what it does best and leave the rest of social media to others.

Exception to the rule: While it is ever more difficult to gain access to consumers via earned media, this is not a universal problem for all categories. Entertainment, news and style brands continue to have opportunities to increase reach and engagement both in traditional social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as the newer breed of visual platforms such as Vine, Instagram, Pinterest and perhaps, if they can prove themselves to marketers, Snapchat and Whatsapp. Most other categories simply do not have the luxury of innate consumer interest, and trying to manufacture it where little exists only pushes brands to, well, let's move on to reason number two...

Reason Two: The Harder Marketers Try To Win Earned Media, the Greater the Risks

You're getting a little choked up with the emotion of this respectful post, aren't you?

As earning organic social media becomes more difficult, marketers get more desperate to break through, which elevates the risk for brands. No consumer hopes for a daily dialog with their brand of canned pasta, as evidenced by the fact Spaghettios has just 2,600 people "talking about the brand" despite having amassed 518,000 "fans." Since no national brand can succeed with a marketing effort that has a reach of just 2,600 consumers (and since some Social Media Marketing Manager's job depends on it), Spaghettios' Marketing Department has to churn out daily content that struggles to get more attention than other brands. The more they produce and the harder they try, the greater the risks, so it is of little surprise that Spaghettios stumbled instead of soared. The brand's recent Pearl Harbor Day post of a smiling brand logo waving the American flag was widely criticized and embarrassed the brand.

Spaghettios apologized and said its intent was to pay respect, but you and I both know that is not true. This was marketing content, and the goal in posting it was to achieve what marketers always want to achieve in social media--likes, comments and shares. The intent of the smiling cartoon Spaghettio was not to pay respect but to create brand engagement (and in that, at least, the brand succeeded).

Of course, I should not pick on the Campbell Soup brand when there is an almost limitless number of examples of social marketing missteps to choose from in 2013: The #AskJPM, #AskBG and #AskRKelly hashtag dustups; endless look-alike newsjacking after the royal baby's birth; embarrassing campaigns to extort retweets in exchange for charitable dollars; failure to control social accounts from dismissed employees; pathetic fake account hacks to jack up follower counts; branded hashtags inserted into tweets about tragedies; accidentally racist posts; misguided humor about fatal airport crashes. Was that enough, or should I go on?

Cole defended his tweet as a way to "provoke a dialogue." How far is your brand willing to push to get attention?

Okay, I will! Epicurious insensitively exploiting the Boston Marathon tragedy for social content. Kenneth Cole joking about war to sell footwear. Taco Bell turning fans into detractors by mistakenly sending thousands to restaurants that were not yet carrying a promised new product. Nokia failing to put a language filter in place, permitting someone to post "F### you" on its corporate account. (Yes, that "F" word!) The Onion calling a nine-year-old girl a c###. (Yes, that "C" word!)

In 2014, we will see still more brand blunders in social media, but there is a simple solution: Stop trying so hard! With shrinking opportunities to reach the kind of mass scale marketers want and need, consider the risks versus the potential modest rewards. If you do, many of you will shut off the lights on those special-event real-time marketing newsrooms--your brand is more likely to be criticized for spamming consumers' conversations than be next year's Oreo Blackout. Put an end to those tweet-this-or-we-won't-save-a-starving-child campaigns, which consumers increasingly see as mercenary attempts to boost brand reach. Stop desperately asking people to "like this if you love Fridays." Tactics like those may deliver some bumps in your social media analytics, but they are more likely to create negative sentiment than to boost consideration, purchase intent or loyalty at any reasonable scale.

Note that I said to stop trying so hard, not stop trying altogether. Brands certainly have a place in social media, but the time has come to focus not on what your marketing department wants but on what your customers want: Deals, information, education, customer service, co-creation and social functionality. In this list, the Marketing Department is best aligned to furnish just one type of content--promotions. The remainder of the content and services are better left to Public Relations, Customer Care, Product Management and Development and Channel Management.

The Marketing Department is an important provider of content for social channels, but that does not mean those social channels should be run by Marketing with the goal of producing marketing results. In the coming year, I anticipate we will see more Public Relations and Customer Care departments take over companies' social accounts. This will decrease the chances for the kind of social missteps that embarrass brands. No PR or customer service department will ever post an image of a smiling Spaghettio waving a flag, newsjack a national event or fake an account hack. Those departments do not need to win a battle for hundreds of thousands of eyeballs in order to succeed, and they will not push the envelope until, inevitably, the envelope tears and creates a social PR mess.
Exception to the rule: If your brand does not offer the kind of customer experience that earns advocates, then attempting to earn organic attention at scale is difficult and risky. If, however, your company creates advocates with a great product or service experience, that bestows opportunities for social media marketing that is safer and more prone to success. Coca-Cola, USAA, Apple, Trader Joe's and other successful brands don't succeed in the real world because they have great social media; they succeed in social media because they offer a great experience in the real world.

Reason Three: There is Little Evidence that Social Media Marketing Success Drives Business Success

No matter what your corporate social media scorecard may imply, all engagement is not created equal. Getting consumers to engage with your jokey posts or videos is not the same as making a brand impression, building purchase intent or driving sales. Too many brands continue to chase social media metrics while failing to measure how and if social media efforts drive business results. For every Dove "Real Beauty" or Secret "Let Her Jump" that delivers measurable marketing results, there are dozens of other social campaigns that fall far short.

It is easy to see the gap between social media success and business success by looking at Kmart's 2013 efforts. Few brands were as talkable as Kmart this year. Thousands of blog posts and tweets trumpeted the brands' success with funny viral videos like "Ship My Pants" (20 million views!), "Big Gas Savings" (6 million views!), "Show Your Joe" (16 million views!) and the new "Ship My Trowsers" (3 million views in a week!) Even though Kmart, which is owned by Sears, amassed twice as many views as top-rated primetime program NCIS has viewers, the retailer has continued its slow decline, with same-store sales falling 2.1% in the second quarter and an equal amount in the third quarter. As Mashable's Todd Wasserman notes, "It's hard to make a case that the ads did much for owner Sears's bottom line."

In the article on Mashable, Sears chief digital marketing officer says he judges success by "the amount of engagements in social media surrounding the brand." It is long past time for digital and social media leaders to stop this kind of idiotic babble. Marketing that entertains or engages without driving measurable brand or business benefits is failed marketing. Television ad buyers don't claim success based on gross rating points, and neither should digital and social marketers claim success can be counted in "likes" rather than dollars, new customers or brand equity (such as awareness and purchase intent).

Kmart is not the only brand we can study to see the tenuous relationship between social media success and business success. Late last year, Red Bull launched an amazing social campaign around Felix Baumgartner's record-setting skydive. The YouTube video earned 35 million views and got everyone talking. Two months ago, uberVU evaluated Red Bull's and Monster's social media presence and declared Red Bull the winner. But while Red Bull may be winning the social media battle, it is losing the market share war. In recent years, Red Bull has been slowly bleeding market share to Monster, and the trend continued in 2013. In Monster's third quarter earnings call, CEO Rodney Sacks announced that Monster's year-over-year growth was greater than Red Bull's and that Monster was close to overtaking Red Bull in US market share.

Two of the biggest social media marketing successes of the past fourteen months seem to be driving no demonstrable brand success. Maybe my Kmart and Red Bull examples seem unfair since, of course, social media is but one small factor in overall brand success or failure. After all, customers disappointed with past Kmart experiences won't be enticed into stores with a funny video, and Red Bull may be leaking market share because competitors have better product innovation. If you buy this line of reasoning, then you are acknowledging my point--entertaining consumers with funny videos and knee-slapping posts do little to impact the bottom line when consumer perception of the brand is shaped by more powerful experiences with the product or service.

I see little evidence that entertaining consumers with social content imparts benefits to brands. Consumers are awash in entertainment options, and your brand cannot compete with the likes of Beyonce, PewDiePie, Cinema Sins, Rihanna or Reddit. Those channels and pages, and thousands of entertainment options like them, are unencumbered by the limitations faced by your brand, such as reputation considerations, brand fit, legal and regulatory concerns and, most of all, the need to drive purchase of goods and services. (Yes, Rihanna and Beyonce want you to buy their music, but in that case their entertainment is their product, while your brand is left producing diverting videos in the wild hope they will drive folks to purchase pistachios or bottled water.)
There remain several ways marketers can succeed in social media, including paid media and using social networks to distribute promotions. In addition, brands that create advocates through superior customer experience can work to increase Word of Mouth. For many marketers, however, 2014 will be the year they must contend with the diminishing reach, increased risk and dubious business results of organic content and earned media. The earned media equation is changing, and marketers must ensure they don't make the mistake of committing to a strategy that cannot deliver the audience, opportunities and results necessary.

The time is right for a reassessment of your brands' cost-benefit equation with respect to marketing content in social media. If you are achieving significant organic scale and positive outcomes for a reasonable cost, keep up the good work. But if you are employing writers, videographers, photographers, illustrators and other creatives to develop social media content that is reaching too few customers and fails to deliver measureable results, then a change is in order.

There is no shame in acknowledging that earned media does not offer the marketing opportunities that we hoped for years ago as social media was developing. There is, however, shame in continuing to invest if the strategy is not producing results or in striving so hard for marketing success that the company is embarrassed with a social media misfire.

In 2014, I believe the time has come for a normalization of roles in social media. Your organization has professionals with decades of experience creating earned media, and they are not in Marketing but PR. Your organization also has professionals able to scale one-to-one relationships, answer customer questions and engage consumers individually, and they are found in Customer Care. These are the departments that can better manage corporate social accounts. More importantly, they can measure success on their own terms, with metrics based on responsiveness, reputation and satisfaction rather than on acquisition and sales.

The shift has already happened at many companies, but if the Marketing Department at your firm still "owns" the corporate social media accounts, it may be time for them to hand over the keys. Moreover, if your marketing function is ramping up a content marketing program at the same time earned media opportunities are vanishing, caution and careful consideration of costs and goals is advised. Marketing will always have a role on social networks, but the time has come to recognize that social media is not primarily a marketing channel but is better aligned to the longstanding responsibilities and capabilities of others throughout the organization.

When brands try to control social media through heavy-handed legal or PR means, the outcomes are rarely positive. Clumsy brand actions that evoke social media backlash occur with such regularity, there is even a term for it: The Streisand Effect. 

In the past, we have explored the negative impact on brands caused by the Streisand Effect, but not all brands stumble into this trap. Some brands, when faced with similar tricky situations, take smart actions that not only avoid the negative PR and social backlash but strengthen the brand's reputation and relationships. What do these brands do right where so many others err? Here are two great examples of brands that got lemons and made lemonade:

Pitbull and Walmart Make the Most Out of Exile

A year ago, Walmart and Sheets Brand, the folks who make those dissolvable energy strips, launched a contest with rap star, Pitbull. The contest was simple: The Walmart store with the most new "likes" would win a Pitbull appearance in its hometown.

As so often happens in social media and on the Web, nothing is ever simple once the crowd gets involved. David Thorpe, a writer with the Boston Phoenix, started a viral meme when he suggested that people send Pitbull to the most remote Walmart, in Kodiak, Alaska. Thorpe's idea became a hashtag, #ExilePitbull, and sure enough, Kodiak was the easy winner of the brand's contest.

At this point, many brands might have freaked out or the "star" might have revolted, but Pitbull proved to be a great sport and made the most out of his trip to Sarah Palin's neighborhood. The rapper posted a video addressing the prank and committing, "You have to understand I will go anywhere in the world for my fans.” He got the key to the city, visited the US Coast Guard base and, of course, stopped at the local Walmart where he received a care package that included bear repellent.

Pitbull not only saw Thorpe's prank, he raised it. The recording artists invited Thorpe to join him on the trip, turning Thorpe into the biggest influencer of the campaign. Thorpe's tweets and pictures helped send word of Pitbull's trip to the Kodiak Walmart bouncing around the Internet.

Walmart and Pitbull came out of this potential PR disaster with a slew of new fans--both of the Facebook and real-world variety. Comments posted to YouTube, Twitter and Facebook were overwhelmingly positive, and both Walmart and Pitbull earned a lot of good press. Lost in the shuffle, however, was the brand this promotion was designed to boost, Sheets. It is easy to find dozens of blog posts and articles that praise the rapper and the discount chain, but I can find no evidence Sheets itself got a boost from the promotion. Still, faced with an unexpected and potentially unpleasant outcome, Walmart and Pitbull built credibility and gained authentic social media attention with smart moves and follow through.

Jack Daniel's Turns a Cease-and-Desist Letter Into Positive PR

The term "Cease and desist letter" should cause instant anxiety for anyone responsible for reputation management or social media. Sometimes these letters work as intended, but often they become fodder that turns a small, ignored issue into a giant, publicized problem. (In fact, the original 2003 incident that resulted in the creation of the term "Streisand Effect" was initiated with a cease-and-desist letter.)

It does not have to be this way if the brand uses some common sense before firing off legal threats. This tactic might may had few risks in the days before social media, but in the social era consumers are no longer powerless nor are brands protected by a mass media firewall. Brands must first determine if siccing the Law Department on someone is really the right step to take, but assuming it is, then the lawyers have to be reasonable. I know, I know, that's asking a lot, but Jack Daniel's has given us a blueprint for how to do it right.

In 2012, novelist Patrick Wensink published a book, "Broken Piano For President," with a cover suspiciously similar to Jack Daniel's famous label. The brand needed to protect its IP, so Wensink quickly heard from Jack Daniel's Properties. The brand's cease-and-desist letter went viral in social media, but in this case the word of mouth was positive.

Jack Daniel's achieved this by sending, in the words of Wensink, "the most polite cease and desist ever written." The letter says, "Because you are both a Louisville 'neighbor' and a fan of the brand we simply request that you change the cover design when the book is reprinted." Then Jack Daniel's goes on to--get this!--offer to pay for the book cover to be changed.

The book author noted, "If it wasn’t signed by some lawyer, I’d imagine ol’ Gentleman Jack penning it himself, twirling his bushy mustache." How's that for on-brand messaging? Thanks to a considerate cease-and-desist letter, Jack Daniel's turned a dangerous situation into something positive--hundreds of complimentary blog posts, articles and social media posts ensued.

Now, really, how hard was it for Jack Daniel's to achieve its goals and garner positive PR?  Not every negative situation may furnish the opportunity for your brand to create what Jack Daniel's achieved, but too many brands unleash the lawyers without giving consideration to alternate approaches and outcomes.


Jack Daniel's, Walmart and Pitbull demonstrate how brands can react when something unexpected occurs. Rather than push the panic button and create an even worse problem, these brands kept their word, lived up to the brand promise, stayed on message and let their actions speak louder than their words.

That is how you avoid the Streisand Effect and turn social media lemons into lemonade!

Happy Birthday, Streisand Effect!

Ten years ago this month, one of the most well-known Internet memes was born: The Streisand Effect. This meme is not a frothy Harlem Shake-like viral sensation that is here today and gone tomorrow; it is a set of avoidable circumstances with serious consequences for anyone responsible for managing reputation, public relations or social media. Already in this young year, The Streisand Effect has tripped up a number of brands and people who should, by now, know better. Avoiding The Streisand Effect is not difficult, so why after a decade is it still such a problem?

The photo that launched a meme--Streisand's mansion

The Streisand Effect was named after an incident that began in February 2003. A photographer, Kenneth Adelman, posted thousands of photos of the California coastline in an effort to document coastal erosion. One of those pictures showed an aerial view of Barbara Streisand’s Californian estate. Streisand's law firm wrote a cease-and-desist letter and later filed a lawsuit, demanding the photos be taken down.

This heavy-handed legal action not only failed to get the photos removed but called tremendous attention to the photos of Streisand's massive home. The image of her estate was downloaded just six times prior to the suit but was accessed almost half a million times in the month afterward. And thus a meme was born--"The Streisand Effect" occurs when someone's ineffective attempts to censor information results in that information gaining more publicity, attention and engagement.

It is positively astounding to me that public relations professionals still do not grasp the essential truth of the digital and social era: Information cannot be contained. If damaging information hits the web, there are many things you can do to manage reputation, including responding, issuing contradictory information, addressing individuals, enlisting advocates and contacting influencers. In fact, there is really only one option that is not available in 2013 (as was the case in 2003), and that is to attempt to get the offending information scrubbed from the Web.

Ten years after the "The Streisand Effect" was born, brands and PR professionals still have not learned. Already in the first seven weeks of 2013, we have seen some big brands stumble into Streisand Effect blunders:

• 
  Beyonce rocked her performance at the Super Bowl Halftime show, but her many strained facial expressions during her physical dance routine instantly became a new meme. Beyonce's publicist emailed Buzzfeed and requested unflattering photos be taken down. In the most predictable reaction ever in the history of mankind, Buzzfeed instead published the request, resulting in thousands of additional unflattering photos.
     
• This weekend, NASCAR attempted to get an eyewitness video of the horrific Daytona crash taken down using a DMCA request. This was a silly move, because once the video had hit YouTube, it immediately began to spread to other sites and servers. It was also silly because it offended NASCAR fans, leaving them "boiling angry," according to Poynter. All of this was for nothing, because the takedown request failed when YouTube rejected NASCAR's right to exert copyright over the video, leaving the racing organization working to control the damage; NASCAR issued a statement claiming their request was done "out of respect for those injured in today's accident."
     
• 
  Google itself seems to have been caught in the very trap that its own search engine created. A week ago, a report surfaced of a security flaw in Google Play, the online store for Android users. It seems developers are being provided with the names, addresses and email addresses of app purchasers. In response, Google contacted the news site and requested changes to the story, claiming the issue was not a flaw at all. The site amended the article and noted, "This story was amended at the request of Google. News.com.au took out the words 'massive' and 'huge' - referencing the size of the security 'flaw'. The word 'flaw' was also put into inverted commas." Google likely would have faced less publicity had it simply opted to release its own contrary information or viewpoint on the topic; instead, with just a whiff of censorship, Google's decision to ask that a news article be changed has launched hundreds of tweets, blog posts and forum comments.
    
• 
  Big media is not immune to the dangers of The Streisand Effect. CNET was so impressed with the Dish Network's new Hopper with Sling, it announced the product was being considered for CNET's "Best of CES" award. This did not sit well with CNET's parent company, CBS, which is embroiled in a lawsuit with Dish over that company's "Autohop" technology, which  automatically skips ads in day-old shows. CBS seemed to face little negative ramification from this situation, but it created a mountain out of a molehill when it asked CNET to retract the nomination and refrain from reviewing any Dish products. A waterfall of problems ensued, and in the end, Dish won the award anyway, Dish's product received more PR, CNET was stripped of its role in choosing future "Best of CES" winners, a senior CNET writer quit with a public broadside at CBS and CBS has left many with the impression its news is driven by its own interests and not objectivity. A lose-lose-lose-lose proposition for CBS, all thanks to The Streisand Effect.
    
• Earlier this month, singer Chubby Checker, upset over a penis measurement WebOS app named "Chubby Checker," filed suit against HP, parent company of Palm. The suit claims that HP did not remove the app quickly enough upon receiving a cease-and-desist warning, and this delay, claims the suit, "adversely affect(ed) Chubby Checker's brand and value." Considering the app was downloaded a whopping 84 times and that Checker's lawsuit is now splashed across the Huffington Post, Associated Press, The Guardian and dozens of other news sites, it is difficult to see how the lawsuit's goal has been accomplished. Then again, with Chubby Checker releasing a new single, it may be that the artist is attempting to execute the difficult Reverse Streisand, using the Streisand Effect about his lawsuit to promote his new tune. 

As the Chubby Checker example may (or may not) demonstrate, the Streisand Effect can also be used by smaller brands to create awareness and challenge established brands. A better, more obvious example of this comes from SodaStream's 2013 Super Bowl non-ad. The company sells beverage-making machines that replace consumers' need for Coca-Cola and Pepsi products. The first draft of SodaStream's Super Bowl ad (see below) was reportedly rejected by CBS; of course, it was uploaded to YouTube where it has received almost five million views, courtesy of the controversy.

This was not the first time the Streisand Effect boosted SodaStream's awareness. Last year, TV execs in the UK yanked a SodaStream ad for being too disparaging to soft drink companies. Soon, the number of views of the ad on YouTube surged from 100,000 to more than 2 million.

The Streisand Effect is so pervasive nowadays, it is hard to understand why so many companies stumble into the situation. Is it ego, thinking a brand's power can be used to scrub information from the Internet? Outdated thinking? Or just panicked decision making that severs decisions from common sense?

This is not the first time I've written about the Streisand Effect, and something tells me it will not be the last. Of course, preventing the Streisand Effect is really quite easy. If a piece of incorrect or damaging information begins to circulate, the recipe to avoid danger is:

1. Stop! Do not act until dispassionate logic has the upper hand over emotional reaction.
    
2. Do not rely solely on lawyers for guidance. For both action and communication decisions, involve PR, reputation management and social media professionals for counsel.
    
3. Appreciate that the offending information is on the Internet and will never disappear. Your goal is not to get it removed but to react in a way that mitigates damage.
    
4. Do not overreact to the situation. Take stock of how much the information is really spreading, if the company's customers and prospects care, and whether it will impact the company's reputation and business. Sometimes, no action is better than anything else.
    
5. Be transparent and embrace openness. Show people you have nothing to hide, care what they think and are open to feedback.
    
6. Do not hesitate to correct--but not censor--erroneous information. Combat misinformation in the same channels it is spreading. For example, fight video with video--you cannot counter a viral YouTube video with a press release.
    
7. Engage consumers, advocates and influencers in a conversation. This is not a shouting match but a dialog.
    
8. Admit fault where there is fault. You cannot hide from the court of public opinion, and pleading guilty will often do more to end the spread of damaging information and enhance reputation than trying to evade.
    
9. Do not, under any circumstances, post and tweet the same canned language time after time. This is like throwing gasoline on a fire, and it will only make matters worse. Avoid corporate speak and talk like a person.
    
10. Lastly, do not wait for a reputation event before you consider how to address one. Be prepared. Have a plan. Drill on it, to make sure your tools, processes and people are ready. 

Remember, these situation are not about information but about People (people who need people). If you want the Internet to not Rain On Your Parade, avoid Emotion, and soon Happy Days Will Be Here Again--you and your customers will be back to The Way You Were.

(Sorry about that. I was really struggling with how to close this blog post on a Streisand note.)

We social media bloggers love a good "crisis." It can be tough to come up with new things to write about month after month, so when a company stumbles in social media--a daily inevitability across the entire social web--bloggers pounce. But is the focus on "crises" and "disasters" good for our industry, and is all this attention really warranted? When one examines the actual business ramifications faced by those companies that have suffered the most visible social PR events in the short history of social media, there seems little evidence to justify the level of attention and alarm dedicated to the never-ending cycle of "social media crises."

Certainly, when your company finds itself the target of hundreds (or even dozens) of irate and critical tweets and posts, it feels like a crisis, but are these events truly business crises? I recently explored this topic in a presentation I gave at the PR and Social Media Summit, and I suggested the term "social media crisis" is hyperbole--an exaggeration that marketing, PR and social media professionals leverage for more attention (and budget) but that inflates the short-term risks (while ignoring the actual long-term causes and threats).

Look at the granddaddy of social media crises, United Breaks Guitars. You all know the story, of course--how could you not? Back in 2009, as social media was beginning to attract serious attention, this event became fodder for thousands of books, blog posts, articles and conference presentations. Given the attention this received, one would think United was fighting for its very life, but did "United Breaks Guitars" really damage United's business?

While everyone seems to believe this infamous situation did harm to United, I have yet to find a single person who admits to altering their own travel habits because they heard Dave Carroll's sad tale. Did you, as a result of seeing the video, opt for a more expensive flight or less convenient itinerary in an effort to avoid United? Of course not, and neither did anyone else; in the six months following the release of the "United Breaks Guitars" video, the company's stock outperformed competitors Delta and US Airways by more than 150%.


Perhaps United Breaks Guitars is a bad example; after all, it occurred way back in 2009, when Facebook had 250 million users, 75% fewer than today. Here is a more recent example: Just two months ago, Progressive faced its own "social media crisis" when a comedian blogged how the company helped the defense of the person responsible for the accident that caused the death of his sister and, more importantly, Progressive's own premium-paying customer. That blog post went viral, and soon Progressive's Facebook page and Twitter feed erupted with anger (a situation further exacerbated when Progressive's Flo robo-tweeted identical responses.)

Did Progressive's "crisis" harm its business? We do not need to wonder, because the company's financial performance from this period can be found in Progressive's recent SEC filings. This event occurred in the middle of the company's last quarter, which ended September 30th. That quarter was the most profitable the company has had in over a year. Progressive's revenue was up 5.7% from the previous quarter and up 14% from the same quarter in 2011. The results were better than expected, lifting shares of Progressive's stock above the rest of its sector. There is no evidence this well-publicized social media event dented Progressive's financial results.

Update 10/26/12:  Remember the backlash Chick-fil-A faced?  Here's how it turned out for them according to USA Today: "So much for ‘bad’ PR. Consumer use of the chain was up 2.2 percent in the third quarter compared with the same period in 2011, says the Sandelman survey of more than 30,000 fast-food consumers conducted in markets where Chick-fil-A is located. Market share was up 0.6 percent, and total ad awareness was up a hefty 6.5 percent.”

And what about the 800-pound gorilla of social media crises--Bank of America's debit card fee debacle? This social media event made headlines worldwide thanks to a Change.org petition with 300,000 signatures, a Bank Transfer Day event with 57,000 likes and real-world protests at Bank of America headquarters.

At first, there was convincing evidence that this social media crisis caused real damage to Bank of America's business. In the month following Bank of America's debit fee announcement, credit unions reported they gained 650,000 new customers, more than the 600,000 customers who joined credit unions during the entirety of 2010. The Credit Union National Association reported that deposits into those new savings accounts totaled $4.5 billion. A poll by Harris Interactive found that nearly 90 percent of credit union customers said they were extremely or very likely to stick with their current institution, while only 40 percent of BofA customers said the same. Notably, all the attention forced Bank of America to reverse its decision and rescind the new fees.

Success--a social media crisis that demonstrably stung a company! Or did it? While some customers fled Bank of America, it was not enough to impact the company's overall performance. In fact, while credit unions reported picking up $4.5 billion in new deposits, Bank of America saw average deposit balances rise 500% more--an increase of nearly $25 billion in the same fiscal quarter as bank transfer day. And if any shareholders dumped their stock in the face of the vociferous social media protests, they regretted that decision; in the six months following Bank of America's disastrous fee announcement, shares of its stock rose 51% while the Dow Jones increased just 22%. In fact, after hearing how social media anger adversely affected the entire banking sector at the end of 2011, in the last twelve months, the KBW Bank Index has risen at more than twice the rate of the Dow Jones Index.


What does this all mean for social media professionals? I am interested in hearing your insights, but here are my conclusions:

• We should stop using the term "Social Media Crisis": Merriam-Webster defines crisis as a crucial time with "the distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome." Social media "crises" are simply not resulting in "highly undesirable outcomes," at least as measured by important financial measures. Our use of the term "crisis" does not reflect well on our profession; it connotes panic when what we need to convey is assurance and capability. I have begun to change my language, using the word "event" instead of "crisis" or "disaster." An event is something we handle; a crisis is something we suffer. An event is something that can be planned for and prevented; a disaster is something we are powerless to foresee or affect.
    
• "Social Media PR Events" do matter but are not as acute as many make them out to be: I compare social media PR events to broken bones. A broken bone is a serious medical event--it is painful, requires immediate attention from a professional, and needs treatment to prevent more significant long-term problems--but no one in the medical field calls a broken bone a "crisis" (unless the patient is elderly or has an underlying condition). In the same way, our social media PR events are serious--they take us off message, weaken relationships, increase costs, distract leaders and may result in short-term loss of sales--but our attitude should be similar to how doctors react to broken bones: Professional, capable, experienced and calm. That is the approach our bosses want and expect of us--not calling a "code" and pulling out a crash cart every time we receive a couple angry tweets.
    
• Focus on the prevention, not just the cure: Certainly social media professionals must prepare their organizations for social media events--that is an important part of our job--but the exaggerated attention to crises may distract us from an even more important task--proactive prevention. Helping our organizations avoid the problems in the first place is not something we do just with tweets and posts; instead, we have to be consultants, helping peers understand the way the product and service experience, corporate decisions, employment policies, leadership, culture and mission can encourage or discourage advocacy, strong relationships and positive reputation.
    
• It is our reputation that matters, not the individual events: To be clear, I am not suggesting that reputation and social media does not matter; to the contrary, reputation is increasingly important, regardless of the "crises" experienced. It is possible for a company to suffer from crises and still succeed--look at Apple, which has faced considerable questions about its environmental commitment and supply chain labor policies but still continues to set records on Wall Street. It is also possible for a company to struggle despite avoiding social media events; Hewlett-Packard stock is down 44% in the past year, but it has not (to my knowledge) suffered a serious social media event in this period. (In fact, search for the term "Hewlett-Packard social media" and you will find a great deal of praise and positive press.) Of course, social media is but one of many factors that impact company performance and stock price, but the power of reputation continues to grow in the social era. As Bob Garfield and Doug Levy shared in Ad Age, the 2006 Edelman Trust Barometer demonstrated that "quality products and services" was the top response in identifying the standard of trust, but by 2010, "quality" had dropped to the third slot. "Transparent and honest practices" is the new number one, with 83% of respondents citing it. In short, it's not the crises that matter, it's your reputation.

What do you think? Are we too obsessed with "the social media crisis"? Do you have some good examples of social media crises that have demonstrably and adversely affected company performance? Your input is appreciated!

The equation for business in 2012 is unmistakable and sobering: Trust in brands is eroding, consumer economic confidence is low, and the ability of frustrated consumers to fight back through social media continues to grow. This past year saw a number of high profile brands attempt to implement fees or raise prices, only to backpedal and grovel after facing a scathing flood of angry and vocal customers.

A lot of time and money is wasted planning, executing and reversing a large-scale business policy, but many of the companies who reversed course lost more than time and money--they lost customers and market share. Bank of America attempted to implement a fee for debit card users, contributing to an exodus of 650,000 bank customers to credit unions in just four weeks--more than the 600,000 customers who joined credit unions during the entirety of 2010--and that was before the Bank Transfer Day organized in social networks. Netflix tried to raise prices by separating their streaming and DVD rental business, resulting in a loss of 800,000 customers in a single quarter.

These two companies didn't just lose some reputation--they lost financial value. Both companies "listened to their customers" and rescinded their derided policies, but that failed to prevent a significant loss of market value. BOA shares are down 10% since it announced its debit card fee and Netflix shares have lost 55% of their value since the company's September 19 announcement. In the old days, angry consumers faced with price increases merely switched brands; today they can organize, attack, broadcast, influence, switch en masse, and adversely affect the value investors place on the brand's future.

It is vital that business leaders realize the trends we are seeing as we move into 2012 are not new or temporary. Trust in brands has been eroding for more than a decade--according to the Young and Rubicam BrandAsset Valuator, consumers in 2008 voted just over one-fifth of brands as trustworthy, less than half the 52% of brands considered trustworthy in 1997. Meanwhile, consumers are cautious to spend due to an economy that no one--particularly not Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke--expects to improve any time soon. And, as consumer adoption of social media grows, so does the number of social media crises faced by business, according to Altimeter.

In 2012, the potent combination of consumer frustration, economic woes and social media empowerment may not simply affect individual brands; these forces could reshape entire industries this year. One consulting firm surveyed 5600 consumers about the brand vulnerability of retail banks in the US and predicted growing customer anger could result in the 10 largest banks losing $185 billion in deposits during the next 12 months--nine percent of total retail deposits at those banks.

Verizon's one-day reversal this past week only underscores the seriousness of the business environment entering 2012. Verizon announced plans to charge a fee for single bill payments online or by telephone. The uproar was so great that in just a single day, Verizon rescinded its plans. Not only were consumers contacting Verizon to complain, but they were broadcasting their frustration in social media. Hundreds of consumers turned an unrelated Verizon Facebook post into an impromptu forum for venting frustration and 160,000 consumers signed an online petition at Change.org (created by the same young woman whose  online petition contributed to Bank of America's woes.)

So, does this mean companies cannot charge more for their products or institute new fees? Of course not, but there is no longer any excuse for an organization to be surprised and suffer losses due to these sorts of consumer reactions. Consumers are feeling more empowered and are seeing results from their coordinated actions in social media, so 2012 is going to be rocky for businesses that do not embrace new ways to engage, appease and enlist the empowered consumer. As Edelman Digital's Michael Brito and I discussed on Twitter, the steps to avoid a social media disaster are not difficult:

CONSIDER ALTERNATIVES: Is raising a fee or a price the only possible business decision given the circumstances? Can consumers see this as essential and fair, or will they only view your decision as a way to extract more money for shareholders?

For instance, rather than implementing a $2 fee for customers making single bill payments, could a reasonable alternative be a $2 discount for people who switch to automated bill pay? In the intermediate- to long-term, the result is the same--a two-tier pricing system that encourages consumers to embrace cost-saving methods. At a time when consumers are seeking any way to save money, offer the carrot and not the stick to motivate consumers.

Another way to avoid social media disasters is to focus fees and price increases on the few that are raising costs rather than your brand's entire customer population. TD Bank has faced little backlash to their recent fee increase, and the difference may be that the bank targeted the new fees to those few customers--just one percent--who make excessive savings account transfers and thus increase costs. TD Bank has seen little social media backlash--on the same site where Bank of America and Verizon have faced large-scale petitions, the one created to complain about TD Bank's new fees has the support of just the individual who launched the petition.

Another thing to consider is how consumers will react. Consumers never like price increases, but many of 2012's social media reactions weren't just gripes about higher prices. Much like politicking candidates, consumers often seek to frame company decisions into a sound bite. Customers were incensed that Bank of America would charge "me to access my own money in my own checking account." Verizon customers thought they were "helping the company and the environment" by paying online rather than sending physical payments through the postal mail. The substantive negative reactions had as much to do with the perceived context as with the fees themselves.

EXPLAIN: Consumers are not unreasonable, stupid or powerless. They can support a price increase if it is explained in a way that respects their knowledge of the world and power in the brand relationship. If you find you are unable to craft a reasonable, consumer-facing justification for a new fee or price increase, that should be a big, blinking "danger ahead" sign.

Bloggers hammered Netflix for not explaining the reason behind their price increase to customers using both the streaming and DVD services. It certainly defied any logic that with inflation running under 4% a company would need to increase prices 60% in one fell swoop. Did Netflix underprice their services in the first place? Did the streaming or DVD rental business models change due to some unexplained market change? We don't know because Netflix didn't explain it.

The reasons behind Verizon's fee remained a mystery to its customers, mentioned but not explained in a single sentence in the company's press release: "The fee will help allow us to continue to support these single bill payment options in these channels and is designed to address costs incurred by us for only those customers who choose to make single bill payments in alternate payment channels." Why are costs higher for single bill payers? Are costs really higher for people who make single bill payments online versus showing up at a Verizon store with cash in hand? We don't know because Verizon didn't explain it.

The days of implementing a price or fee increase with little to no explanation and then weathering a tiny customer tempest in a teapot are pretty much over. It's not that that approach cannot work, but it is risky and unnecessary. The B2B world, where single customers have always had greater power, has known this for some time, but B2C brands are not use to worrying about empowered consumers. B2C brands would be wise to learn best practices from those B2B brands that have always had to explain price increases and put them into a context that customers can accept. For brands hoping to charge more to customers in 2012, explaining more and testing the message has never been more important.

ASK AND ENGAGE: Consumers may not be excited to help you figure out ways to charge them more money, but they will help brands solve business problems and reward brands for treating them as partners. For example, which sounds better to you: "We're raising fees for people who pay by credit card" or "We incur fees when customers pay by credit card and this increases costs for all customers, which may not be fair. How can we encourage our customers to help us keep prices low?" When you ask customers to help save you money, they may answer "tough luck" and suggest you eat the costs, but wouldn't you rather know this before you announce a new pricing policy that consumers reject?

Starbucks saw the cost of coffee increase and successfully implemented price increases in 2011. Of course, some complained when their "Venti" price jumped a couple of dimes, but the company avoided damage through its use of social media to ask and engage. It maintains a site asking customers for suggestions and has the 32nd most popular page on Facebook where they engage 26.5 million fans. This permitted Starbucks to surf through the year in fine form--with the Dow up 5.5% in 2011, Starbucks shares rose over 40%.

RESPECT: Consumers may react as much to the lack of respect businesses show when increasing fees as to the fees themselves. Language matters, and turning to "marketing speak" rather than candor can make an already difficult communication challenge even greater. Verizon called their new very inconvenient fee a "convenience fee" and Netflix's blog post announcing a 60% price increase included the phrase, "lowest price(s) ever" three times.

Consumers are perceptive and well informed, and they will react when brands fail to speak with them in an honest and forthright manner. A price or fee increase is a risky proposition in this business environment, so don't add fuel to the fire with language better suited for press releases of the past than for a conversation with the empowered consumer in 2012.

TRANSPARENCY: Finally, it is high time in 2012 to understand what that overused but seldom understood term, transparency, means in the social era. Some companies seem to define transparency as "When the customer base erupts and overruns our social channels, we'll have a discussion with them." That sort of reactive transparency is better than none, but avoiding reputation and business problems requires proactive transparency in 2012.

When you ask a newlywed why they chose their spouse, they will answer, "s/he makes me laugh" or "s/he brightens my life," and not, "Because s/he will tell me bad news so we can have a discussion of how to solve problems." The same thing is true when consumers "marry" brands in social media--they will not say that they connect with brands in order to "To hear bad news and have a discussion about price increases," but as with any relationship, consumers do not want to be lied to or managed by their favorite brands.

Your Facebook and Twitter feeds are not just a means to broadcast advertising in a different form. Just as people react when they find their spouses have been spoon feeding them happy lies while hiding growing financial problems, your customers will be offended and incensed if you engage with them on Facebook about marketing programs while sneaking a price increase into your PR newsroom. Transparency in 2012 means having the guts to announce your price increase on Facebook and Twitter just as you would your latest promotion.

If that sounds risky, then you need to reread the preceding paragraphs. If you have considered alternatives, explained, asked, engaged and respected your consumer, then discussing your business environment and the reasons why a price increase is necessary should not be threatening. Consumers may decline your proposal in a strong and unified fashion, but unlike the customer-sapping stock-depressing embarrassments seen in 2011, your brand can walk away from that discussion with customers having a stronger relationship with the brand. Today's "no price increase" may be tomorrow's higher margins powered by loyal advocates. Handled right, customers won't divorce your brand but instead renew their vows.

A brand has always been a relationship, but too often it has seemed that relationship is defined by what happens at a cash register. That never was the case--the relationship between brand and consumer is consummated well before the purchase, when consumers associate themselves with brands they respect, are proud of and say something about themselves. Communication is the key to any relationship, and in 2012 it has never been more vital for brands.

While the consumer mindset is sobering this year, that does not mean the relationship with your brand cannot be stronger than ever. The difference between a headline-grabbing social media backlash and a successful implementation of a price increase or new fee depends more on how you do it rather than what you do, and how you do it depends more on what your brand stands for than what its prices and fees are.

I was reading about the latest so-called "social media disaster"--this one from Qantas Airlines--when I was struck by a sentence in the Reuters article: "PR experts said the campaign was... a classic example of the dangers of unpredictable social media." I don't mean to be hard on Qantas--any company or human can inadvertently make mistakes--but this situation was about as unpredictable as the sun rising or Groupon's stock falling.

Qantas' social media campaign was intended to get travelers using the hashtag #QantasLuxury and describing their "dream luxury inflight experience." The timing was, at best, dubious, coming just a day after Qantas and its unions broke off contract negotiations and one month after Qantas stranded 70,000 travelers by grounding its fleet due to union woes. Furthermore, the prizes in this promotion weren't, as you might expect, trips to exotic locales but pajamas and toiletry kits. The effect was to spur many negative, sarcastic and angry responses about Qantas in social media channels.

So, are you shocked at the outcome? Do you find the social media backlash "unpredictable?"

How many instances of social media PR disasters are truly unpredictable? There are cases when a brand can be caught by surprise--such as when activists launch a critical social media campaign or a single consumers' complaint becomes a meme--but are most social media issues really fluky and unforeseeable? This isn't an inconsequential question; if social media is a flaky and erratic channel, then it is an inhospitable medium for business.

I believe social media is not a game of chance but more akin to the weather. Weather forecasters may frequently get tomorrow's forecast wrong, but that doesn't mean we consider sun, rain, snow or lightning unpredictable.

This year, lightning strikes will ignite around 24,600 fires to which US fire departments will respond. One lightning strike is unpredictable;  tens of thousands of them across the country is not. Because we know this, we prepare. We purchase insurance, install lightning rods, use surge protectors and tune into the National Weather Service to stay informed when weather turns severe.

Any brand can be struck by social media lightning at any time, so the smart ones prepare--they engage advocates, provide excellent products and services, amass fans and followers, deploy social business strategies, use listening platforms and employ community managers to respond with speed, empathy and care for the customer. These are the components that ensure if and when a brand is struck by social media lightning, brand damage is limited.

But while any brand can be struck, we also have to recognize there are actions our organizations may do that can make it a target.  Golfers know better than to stand in the middle of a fairway holding a metal club above their head in a thunderstorm, yet brands seem to do the social media equivalent quite frequently.

Many of the social media PR disasters that have occurred weren't unpredictable. Brands may not be able forecast the specific social media reaction, but we know risk increases when brands raise prices or fees, redesign products or logos without engaging loyal customers, fail to hear concerns about environmental policies, ignore consumer complaints, engage in dubious business practices, or--as in Qantas' case--deploy marketing or take other actions that fail to understand the brand's current relationship with consumers.

Social media is not unpredictable. I can predict that your organization, if it is any size at all, it will be struck with social media lightning this week. Your brand will receive critical posts on its Facebook wall, earn one-star ratings on review sites and get a handful of gripes on complaint sites like PissedConsumer.com.

There is no insurance for social media lightning--no one will compensate your brand should a misstep cause lost business or brand damage--but smart organizations can prepare and protect. They do so by understanding the social media climate, conducting business in ways consumers expect, setting their business and communication strategies appropriately and investing in social media to protect their brand from the inevitable.

Consumer storm clouds are brewing. There is a 60% chance of consumer complaints, some industries will face a hard sentiment freeze and companies may experience localized areas of brand flooding. Whether social media will be shelter from the storm or the storm itself has more to do with your enterprise than the "unpredictable" nature of social media.

Transparency and Authenticity are both important in Social Media and in our newly Social World, but what's the difference and which is more important?  The two are often used interchangeably, but authenticity is not  the same as transparency. Complete transparency may be thought of as revealing every private, confidential, or personal thought or experience; complete authenticity is more about being true to your ideals and never being fake or untruthful. Chip Conley, CEO of Joie de Vivre hotels, has provided us a lens through which we may evaluate the difference between--and the differing significance of--transparency and authenticity.

You can read about Conley's dilemma on BNET, but it boils down to this--he's a rock-and-roll CEO who lives large and believes in authenticity.  Some of his employees objected when he posted shirtless photos of himself to the Facebook profile the company PR firm created for him. He believes his employees are wrong to be concerned and asks "What, exactly, does it take to damage the image of the company?"

It's a great question, and the fact he asked it publicly in a blog post teaming with slights to his employees and justifications for his actions may furnish the answer he seeks.  I think a case may be made that Conley has damaged his company, but not because of his Facebook photos; it's his actions after his employees voiced their concerns--actions that prioritize transparency over authenticity--that may possibly prove troublesome for Joie de Vivre.

Conley's shirtless photos were clearly authentic. But so were the concerns of employees. The collision of two contrary but authentic beliefs provided Joie de Vivre with a golden opportunity for internal dialog about the brand, the organization's Social Media policies, and authenticity.  But this is not what happened, because instead of engaging employees, Conley took his concerns public in a blog post in which he admits his first reaction was, “Screw that; people who don’t like it can go work at Marriott.”

In making the concerns of his employees and his own reaction public, Conley has opted for transparency over authenticity.  Airing his grievances with employees was transparent, but it would have been more authentic to discuss the matter with his employees.   Remember that authenticity means keeping true to ideals, and it is clear Conley has an ideal that employee opinions matter. He is proud to have implemented a "cultural ambassador" program in which employees vote for their own representatives on matters of organizational culture.  In fact, it was some of these ambassadors who expressed concerns about Conley's Facebook shots!

Conley's desire for transparency ran headlong into his commitment to authenticity, and he opted to voice his opinions and seek support from outsiders rather than demonstrate care and respect for his ambassadors' feedback.  I believe he was transparent, but violated his own ideals, which was inauthentic.

This isn't the first time we've seen transparency collide with authenticity, nor is it the first reminder that authenticity always wins.  Cisco rescinded a job offer because the candidate tweeted she was weighing "a fatty paycheck against... hating the work"--transparent, but not authentic to her personal and professional goals, I suspect.  A PR firm Social Media consultant found himself in a very public embarrassment after tweeting that he "would die" if he had to live in his client's hometown--completely transparent, and also completely inauthentic in terms of his professional ideals.

I sometimes think we stress transparency too much in Social Media; after all, in the real world we are all  different people in different situations--we behave differently when interacting with our parents, our boss, and our friends.  Does that make us liars?  No, we sacrifice complete transparency in order to be authentic to our ideals in different ways within different relationships.  (I've had friends point out that I have a fairly blue sense of humor that never comes through on Twitter, but I feel my tweets are authentic to my professional passions, even though my guarded approach on Twitter may be less than fully transparent.)

So, my answer to Conley's question--What, exactly, does it take to damage the image of the company?--is that his photos didn't cause harm, but his overly transparent way of dealing with an internal issue may have hurt his relationships inside the organization.  He failed to honor his ideals that employees--particularly the ambassadors--have opinions that matter, and in doing so he made transparency more important than authenticity.

What do you think?  Was Conley authentic by venting his feelings publicly?  Do you think he'd be as accepting if one of his employees chose to post internal disagreements on a blog rather than address them directly within the organization?  And in a Social World, is it possible to be transparent but inauthentic?

Related articles by Zemanta

• How authentic should the CEO be on Facebook? (trafcom.typepad.com)
• Why Social Media Is Vital to Corporate Social Responsibility (mashable.com)
• Going transparent vs. going overboard (heidi-miller.com)

This blog post is provided by Deb Spanic, an Internet and intellectual property attorney with Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek S.C. I asked for her insights about the news regarding Amanda Bonnen, a woman who was sued for criticizing her former landlord, Horizon Group Management, in a tweet to her 20 followers. In Deb's opinion, Horizon's case is not without merit.



About the Author: Deborah Spanic is an Internet and intellectual property attorney, specializing in trademarks, copyright, domain name issues, e-commerce and e-business issues and social media law. Ms. Spanic is licensed to practice in the state of Wisconsin.

The content of this blog post is not legal advice. It only constitutes commentary on legal issues, and is for educational and informational purposes only. Reading this blog, replying to its posts, or any other interaction on this site does not create an attorney-client privilege between you and the author. As with any legal issue that may confront you in a particular situation, you should always consult a qualified attorney familiar with the laws in your state.

Lots of companies have turned customer complaints into gold. By monitoring Twitter and other Social Media channels, smart organizations seek out legitimate complaints from displeased customers, proactively solve them, and snatch victory from the jaws of consumer disenchantment.

But what happens when an organization isn't smart about customer service, Social Media or PR? Horizon Group Management provides us with a case study to monitor and evaluate. While a great deal of damage has already been done in just the first day of Horizon's PR crisis, there are steps the company could take quickly--as in tomorrow!--to begin to mitigate the injury to their reputation and business.

Smart organizations approach Social Media complaints with an eye toward service and earn terrific PR. Not only will formerly aggrieved consumers often tweet their new-found brand happiness, but customer-focused companies also can earn positive PR of the traditional variety. By providing Social Media customer service, companies like Virgin Atlantic, Best Buy, JetBlue, and Comcast have received brand-building attention from news organizations.

But what happens when a company isn't smart about consumer complaints and the power of Social Media? Just today, a situation developed that will allow students of Social Media to monitor and evaluate the damage that can be caused by substandard customer focus and careless Public Relations. If you aren't doing so already, track the Social Media buzz and news about the situation with Horizon Group Management and Amanda Bonnen. We'll see who wins and loses, but I'm already prepared to make a prediction: This will end badly for Horizon.

Chicago resident Amanda Bonnen tweeted a complaint about her Horizon-managed apartment to her 20 followers. In return, the property management company filed a $50,000 lawsuit claiming she "greatly injured its reputation as a landlord in Chicago."

As reported on arts technica, Horizon made no attempt to resolve their concerns with Bonnen. As if the lawsuit didn't sufficiently demonstrate this organization's lack of understanding of Public Relations, an executive with Horizon made a shockingly stupid remark when contacted by the Chicago Sun-Times; Jeffrey Michael told a reporter, "We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization."

An awkward press release subsequently posted by Horizon claims Michael's comments were intended "tongue in cheek," but this will do very little to quell the growing backlash and damage to Mr. Michael's and his company's reputations. In the press release, Horizon also revealed that Bonnen previously filed a lawsuit against the organization, which hints at a far more complex and delicate situation than perhaps was first evident. Problem is, even if Horizon is in the right, the damage is done; their careless actions have caused this situation to go viral.

As Horizon is about to learn the hard way, companies can no longer effectively manage their reputation via legal actions, and consumers are no longer at a disadvantage in the face of bullying lawsuits. Although Bonnen deleted her Twitter account and will have to deal with the lawsuit, Horizon is already emerging as the loser in this David versus Goliath tale.

Bonnen's tweet was made May 12 and was undoubtedly quickly forgotten by her 20 followers. No news organizations picked up the story. Bonnen's complaint against Horizon had--for purposes of Social and Web media--died.

But thanks to Horizon's inelegant handling of the situation, the complaint has been not only reborn but supercharged. What had been a message to 20 people is now being discussed and considered by tens of thousands, perhaps millions. Social Media, blogs, and news organizations broke this story wide just today, and already:

• Google news shows that the number of sources covering this story prior to 8 am was zero; as of this evening, it is over 250 including the Associated Press, Sydney Morning Herald, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, FOX News, and USA Today. For a company that was concerned about how an ignored Tweet might "injure its reputation," Horizon has done a mighty fine job of broadcasting Bonnen's complaint around the globe.
  
• Twitter search reveals that dozens of people are now tweeting about Horizon each hour, and it will come as no surprise that none of the tweets are complimentary. Bonnen only had 17 followers; the people now dragging Horizon's reputation through the mud have far more than that:
  • DanDrusch has 107 followers and says, "Here's a tip: Don't ever ever ever rent an apartment from Horizon Group Management."
  • streetlogics has 1,469 followers and says, "Sued for a tweet http://bit.ly/4m5VnZ My opinion, Horizon Group Management is dumb! UH-OH they might sue me now! Don't we live in America?"
  • charlesthomas has 1,335 followers and says, "An apartment company sued a tenant over a tweet about a moldy apt. http://is.gd/1RVLs If you google the co, the hits are now all about mold."
  • jvandeboom has 4,200 followers and says, "What a PR failure by Horizon Group Management... Makes me believe the mold claims even more. - http://bit.ly/PjLsE"
  
  
• An article about this story was posted on Gawker, one of the most popular blog sites around, and in 9 hours has garnered more than 11,000 views. Over on the Consumerist, more than 18,000 people have viewed today's blog post about Horizon's lawsuit.
  
• Prior to today, the Horizon Realty Group had just three ratings on Yelp, averaging a mere two stars. Today, 17 new ratings were added, all but one with just one star. Horizon's reputation on this popular rating site will forever be marred thanks to the lawsuit and the ill-advised comment by the owner to the press.
  
• Over on Digg, the ChicagoNow.com article about this situation is one of the day's top 15 posts with 1,211 Diggs in just seven hours.

Almost a year ago, I wrote a blog post that asked, "Which is more important? The law or public opinion?" My answer then is even more appropriate today since the past year has seen Facebook grow 248% and Twitter 1,164%:

Brands must become cognizant that the law provides no refuge from public opinion when graceless legal actions are taken. In situations where anger and disappointment go viral, being legally right will not save brands from shame, damaged brand perception, costly PR crisis response, and reduced sales.

The growth of Social Media will increasingly require organizations to consider legal alternatives not just on their merits in law but also based on the potential reaction of millions of interconnected consumers.

So what lessons have we learned in just the first day of Horizon's Social PR mess?

• Being right in the court of law (which Horizon has yet to prove) will not protect a brand in the court of public opinion.
  
• If a brand's goal is to silence a defamer, a lawsuit will rarely accomplish the trick and will often make it much, much worse.
  
• When a reporter calls, defer an answer until the right person can make the right statement.
  
• Consider how your story will play in 140 characters: Big company suing a woman for a tweet to 20 people? Bad. Ignorant sound bite easily encapsulated in 140 characters with plenty of room left for derision? Very, very bad! ("We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization." is just 63 characters! Has this man never heard of Twitter's 140-character limit?)
  
• Listening to customers and dealing with their issues with care and attention is a whole lot easier and cheaper than lawsuits and PR crises.
  
• Get to know and understand Social Media NOW! A company cannot hide from its problems or control the spin as they might have in the past.

What should Horizon do now? First, stop communicating through press releases and lawsuits; authenticity matters. Second, Jeffrey Michael must issue an apology immediately; if he is to save face, he must demonstrate remorse for his oafish comments and promise to resolve the issue with Bonnen quickly. Third, Horizon needs to move with alacrity to resolve the competing lawsuits between themselves and Bonnen, and frankly it's going to cost them now that this problem has gone viral.

Lastly--and most importantly--Horizon needs to embrace transparency. If Horizon has a mold problem in any of their apartments, the time has passed for them to deny and ignore it. This very loud situation has focused an electron microscope on Horizon and their properties; if other tenants start posting YouTube videos or Flickr galleries of poorly maintained properties, or if Chicago media finds merit to tenant complaints as they investigate this headline-grabbing story, Horizon will be very, very sorry they fought Bronnen's complaint not with appropriate action but with a lawsuit.