It’s a Crisis – Where Are You?

Image by alles-schlumpf via Flickr

One thing that’s irrefutable is that social media never sleeps. A good example of this is the recent Motrin video ad that upset a selection of mothers who felt it was demeaning. Cue an uproar on Twitter that was akin to the best viral marketing campaign and soon everyone was looking for the Motrin ad, and not for the right reasons.

What made the Motrin example particularly interesting is that for almost 48 hours there was no response from either the company or the ad agency responsible for the video.

While the Internet was ablaze with blog posts, forum discussions and Twitter conversations about Motrin and its agency, the silence from both was deafening. When Motrin eventually acted by removing the video, they also said that one thing they had learned from it all was how important it is to listen to what’s being said online.

I find this just a little scary, and yet sadly I’m not surprised. Too many companies are in the same boat as Motrin were – they’re not really listening to their audience. They haven’t connected with social media and it’s hurting them and their reputation.

As Motrin realized, once social media picks up on something it’s an instant result. Yet if they or their agency had had any kind of crisis control in place, they could have reacted to all the negativity coming out about them much more effectively.

Perhaps they do have a crisis control plan in place – yet evidently it didn’t include weekends. If someone had been monitoring their brand, the whole episode could have had a very different outcome. Instead, Motrin and the agency were left with a damage limitation exercise that, while it may not have been avoided, could have been easier to manage.

So what do we learn from this? For any business, large or small, listening is key. Your brand is your name and reputation and what makes you stand out from your competitors – you have to protect it fiercely.

I often hear the reason many companies are so slow to react to a crisis like this is because of the international time zones. I don’t think businesses can afford to let this be the case. As the Motrin example and others like it show, social media and conversations don’t take into account different timezones – why should businesses?

For large businesses that have have international offices, this weakens that argument even further. They of all people should be monitoring their brand worldwide. For smaller businesses it may not be so easy, but there are ways to stay on top of things.

For example, why not outsource on an “as needed” basis? There are many professional freelancers and virtual assistants worldwide who can act as your eyes and ears. If you can outsource to the main countries that your business deals with, surely that has to be worth the cost involved?

They can act on your behalf and come out with a company response, and depending on the severity of the crisis you can either deal with it the next day, or have someone from your company be on call to deal with it immediately.

By using tools like Google Alerts, Twitter monitoring software and other applications, your source will know as soon as something needs to be dealt with. They can then take the appropriate course of action. And because it’s on an “as needed” basis, there’s no extra expense except when it’s required.

It may not stop crises like the Motrin one from happening in the first place, but it would ensure that it was dealt with sooner rather than later. That’s got to be worth any business’s time, hasn’t it?

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