Was walking home from work and noticed a couple people picketing and handing out flyers outside of a popular retail store. In short, they were accusing the store of unfair business practices and created a website around an entire campaign that launched today against the brand.
Coincidentally thereafter, I bumped into a buddy of mine who works in PR. I mentioned that I thought the company should engage the group and listen to what they have to say (and in the process be able to clear up facts and show they listened). He was emphatic in saying that that would be a huge mistake as it would “create news” within the press and call undue attention to fanatics. One thing he said which I agree with is that it’s important to, first, assess the situation, its severity, and then develop a response plan – that the response plan could be to “do nothing” if it’s deemed to be an “outlier situation”. I was happy to hear "listening" as a key part of his point-of-view.
Call it the social media in me, but it seems that at least acknowledging the situation shows that the company heard the message. Take a lesson from the recent motrin moms campaign or the Chevy Tahoe debacle, or many of the other brands that got punk'd within the social web. My PR buddy was concerned about the mass media but didn’t seem to take serious social media.
Often times the actual effect of situations like these can be different for large corporations versus small businesses (but not always). Two weeks ago another friend of mine went to confirm his dog grooming appointment and Googled the local company to get their phone number. One of the top results was a “sucks blog” about the company that depicted an incident that happened there. He freaked out and cancelled his appointment…and then told his many dog owner friends who go there about the blog and the alleged incident. They all have since found a new groomer. This is a small business and the impact to that business is likely to be felt because of social media and word-of-mouth.
So when should corporations show they’re listening? When is a non-response the right thing to do?
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