If the Washington Post didn't hear or see the tree fall, it still may have happened.
Remember the riddle: If a tree falls in the woods and no one was there to see or hear it, how do we know it really fell? The new answer is because of cell phone camera and Facebook and Twitter. Take the recent snow storm in Washington, DC was not only big news in the U.S., it made headlines in Europe. So did the Tweet-up Snow Ball fight with the gun toting off-duty officer. http://bit.ly/7Xz6kW
I saw it as a story and photo in a London newspaper. I was first struck by the fact that the Washington snowball fight was a web and Tweet-up public event. And I thought that 20 somethings didn't use Twitter. Not sure how many text messages played a part, but probably not very traditional land line calls were involved.
Fast forward to the snow ball fight and the off-duty officer didn’t like his Hummer being hit by snowballs. It wasn't a reporter from the Washington Post that saw him draw a weapon, it was a snowball revelers with cell phone cameras. http://bit.ly/7yiCSR
The cops issue the usual denials that he drew a gun. Not so, because photos and videos are on YouTube, blogs and pasted on a Facebook page and pretty soon the "traditional media" is picking it up. http://bit.ly/8ccFSh So, a London newspaper writes a story about a tweet-up and Facebook postings and calls it reporting.
Remember the more serious Virginia Tech shootings and the first videos on CNN were from a shakey cell phone. The early videos from demonstrations in Iran were from cell phones. The first information on the point is that in today's world every cell phone is a camera and every tweet could be global news.
Crisis communicators can't relax if an incident doesn't make it to traditional local news. Don't be paranoid, but monitor the news, Facebook, twitter and blogs.
As bloggers, we know that social media is a fluid environment. When attacked, companies and organizations must decide whether to respond quickly to negative sentiment, or wait to assess their response.
Some argue that the percentage of the overall population actively engaging in social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and Digg - though growing - has not yet reached critical mass. But here's the question: is it already a significant enough number, or a critically important enough audience, to warrant constant serious attention by professional communicators?
Was it worth it for Johnson & Johnson's Motrin to pull its controversial ad because of the uproar it caused on Twitter and blogs? According to Ad Age, citing Lightspeed Research, almost 90% of women never saw the ad. Surveys show that more attention was paid to the surrounding crisis and swift corporate reaction versus the ads themselves.
"Too often, communicators act too soon without listening to who are doing the chatting and what it really means to their brand. Sometimes communicators are completely absent from the conversation," remarks social media expert Howard Greenstein.
In contrast, Amazon is currently in the middle of how to continue to react. They had to act quickly last weekend when angry authors (and supporters) of gay and lesbian books whose works were de-listed from the sales charts launched a Twitter-offensive over the Easter holiday weekend. Tagged #amazonfail, thousands posted angry online sentiments about Amazon. Even people who aren't necessarily fans of the de-listed books or authors joined the fray. So far, Amazon is claiming no policy change and that the de-listing was likely due to an algorithm glitch. Amazon called it "an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloguing error." (sic) Question: are they communicating enough? How much would be too much? And are they listening enough first?
In crisis communications, we often talk about the "Golden Hour" a period of time in which you can gather information and respond. It is a phrase from emergency medicine which says that you don't have tons of time, but a little more time than you think. The first five minutes of gut instinct panic responses could lead to the wrong actions in medicine. Taking a little bit more time - but not too much - allows for finding out more data and information, and a more informed response. In social media, we're watching to see if the "golden hour" principle is the rule or the exception.
What has your experience been with social media and situations involving businesses and their services or products that may, or may not, be crises? Do you believe that a quick corporate response is essential even if the scope and scale of the social media conversation remains unclear? Is it enough to respond quickly online, or is immediate corporate action essential as well?
We've been touting how the Flip video cameras are great for social and news media. You can interview yourself and post on the web site. You can record a sound bite or comment and email to your key contacts, employees, and stakeholders.
I just heard of a very creative use. An automobile dealer in Oregon told me that when customers and prospects call or send in an email inquiry, his sales people get out their flip phones, do a quick on camera statement and then walk around the car doing a quick tour and explaining in a very personal way about the vehicle. They then plug the Flip into their PC and email a personal video to the prospect. This enhances the basic information on the dealer's website. I've asked the dealer to track how much this personal video increases traffic to the store.
If someone sent me something like that, it would probably get me to think more highly of the dealer and the products.
What interesting ways are you seeing personalized video being used for selling and persuading?
An online message only 140 characters long can create a world of trouble. That's what Ketchum PR's VP and Director of its Interactive Services Division James Andrews found out while in Memphis last week after he typed the following message onto social media website Twitter: 'True confession but I'm in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, 'I would die if I had to live here.' "
That he was on his way to meet with Ketchum client FedEx which is headquartered in Memphis seems to have been the catalyst for what followed.
Typically, I first found out about it via a tweet from Tweeter @davidhenderson. Andrews found out much more quickly than that. First, some Tweeters posted objections on Twitter, forcing Andrews to respond in typical (and in this case unclear) Twitter short-hand: "My commentary on my arrival was based on encountering ppl who didn't want me at hotel vs the city. Sorry."
Then came the big one: a fellow Tweeter and FedEx employee who earlier had attended a presentation by Andrews to FedEx, wrote an e-mail to Andrews that he also copied to the entire senior management of both FedEx and Ketchum.
He wrote in part: "We do not know the total millions of dollars FedEx Corporation pays Ketchum annually for the valuable and important work your company does for us around the globe. We're confident however, it is enough to expect a greater level of respect and awareness form someone in your position as vice president at a major global player in your industry. A hazard of social networking is that people read what you write."
He went on to write: "James, everyone at today's event, including those in the auditorium with you this morning, just received their first paycheck of 2009 containing a 5% pay cut which we wholeheartedly support because it continues the tradition established by [FedEx Founder Fred Smith] of doing whatever it takes to protect jobs. [M]any of us question the expense of paying Ketchum to produce the video open for today's event, work that could have been achieved by internal, award-winning professionals."
In a subsequent blog posting, Andrews apologized: "Two days ago I made a comment on Twitter that was an emotional response to a run-in I had with an intolerant individual. The tweet was aimed at the individual, not the city of Memphis. If I offended the residents of Memphis, TN, I'm sorry. That was not my intention. I understand that people have enormous pride in their hometown."
He then tried to spin the incident into an example of the constructive function of social media: "While some would say this is the evil side of social media, I would say its pure intention is to foster a back and forth dialogue between people rather than a shield to hide behind and replace human contact."
I imagine that in the emotional aftermath of an unpleasant incident he broke a cardinal rule of blogging: he transmitted his Tweet while still upset. While hardly an indictment of social media, it is a stark reminder of the importance of the evolving new social media communications rules and protocols that must be adhered to; ignore or forget them at your peril.
In truth, the rule that we at CommCore insist on for our clients applies to ALL communications: think before you speak. Remember Secretary of State Al Haig's "I'm in control here" gaffe when President Reagan was shot?
From what we can tell FedEx is keeping Ketchum on as its agency, and Andrews still has his job.
What's your take? What does this incident say to you about the risks and benefits of social media in general, and the short-hand micro-blogging of Twitter?
The explosion of blogging is an indicator of growing official interest in social media by major corporations. Consider the annual survey of Fortune 500 companies by the Center for Marketing Research at The University of Massachusetts which shows that 49% of them use social networking, up from 27% in 2007; 45% use online video, up from 24% in 2007; 39% use blogging, up from 19% in 2007; and 23% do not use any social media tools, down from 43% in 2007.
The 2008 update of the annual Gartner report called the Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies states that corporate blogging has zoomed past what they call the initial peak of inflated expectations and subsequent trough of disillusionment, and is now on its slope of enlightenment toward mainstream corporate adoption in the next 2 to 5 years. We take this to mean that corporate blogging is about to go serious.
How do we react to all these studies? It is one thing to have your own Facebook or LinkedIn page; it is another to present yourself as a corporate face in the wild of the blogosphere and social media networking sites. Do these stats resonate with your experience?
Consistency of messaging across multiple media platforms and communications applications, and recognition that the news media now trolls blogs and social media postings for leads looking for information, inconsistencies and mistakes requires a higher level of communications awareness across the enterprise than before.
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