Learning From Your Mistakes

 It’s 3 o clock on a Tuesday afternoon and the end of the day is in sight. You log onto your Twitter manager of choice, (Cotweet, Tweetdeck) to let your Tweeps know you are off to your favourite burger joint, for that triple stack burger you have been dreaming about the whole day.
 

Just then you notice your saved Twitter search is bringing in an alarming number of Tweets around your brand. You don’t recall any of your three Tweets for the day seeming this RT worthy.

You examine the source of the Twitter activity and it’s as you feared, a negative tweet from an industry influencer has sparked a RT frenzy. Someone has even created a hash tag which they are using to aggregate complaints around your brand.

You phone the guys and let them know they’ll have to have enough beer on your behalf, you’re not going anywhere tonight. Your brand is under attack.

The above situation is any brand manager or PR officer’s worst nightmare. Ultimately there are two types of brand attacks. There are the isolated incidents of anger and the negative trend.

The isolated incident of anger occurs when one individual has had a bad experience and publishes his/her negative sentiment through a tweet or blog post. Remedying this threat entails empathy, honesty and maybe some compensation. A fast, sympathetic engagement will usually save the day and has the power to turn even a brand terrorist into a brand ambassador.

The other, more concerning, brand attack is the trend. This usually stems from one influential individual complaining and the rest of their online community fall in behind them, lending support as they champion the cause. Trends have a tendency to focus on a fundamental flaw in your business. Usually the company is aware of this flaw, but to date haven’t had the motivation or resources to rectify it.

I started this post describing the typical attack on a brand. The cliché says that every cloud has a silver lining, and the proverbial silver lining of any mass brand attack is the opportunity to correct the flaw within your business. Often when your brand is attacked that deep dark secret around your is exposed. The only way to truly overcome this is to acknowledge the problem, rectify it and communicate a fix to the angry masses. Papering over the cracks won’t solve anything and will only see the problem resurface in a few months with a community that is angrier than ever.

The following approach is more likely to result in the resolution of the negative trend:

1. Understand the root cause of the negative trend. what is really generating this angry response?
2. Determine a resolution strategy. What can be done to rectify the problem?
3. Determine the cost of implementing the solution vs. the potential market loss if the problem is left unresolved.
4. If resolving the problem will ultimately result in increased profits then invest the necessary resources.
5. Communicate the resolution to your customers. Outlining deadlines and expected deliverables.
6. Evolve your business so that the problem is resolved for good.

As the person tasked with managing your brand's reputation be sure not to miss this opportunity to fundamentally improve your company’s reputation. Public attacks turn the spotlight on the problem. In many cases they also magically free up resources. Use both to correct the fundamental flaw. Once the problem is corrected or the steps have been put in place to correct the problem, communicate this to your consumers.

Failure to take steps to rectify the core problem will not only see the problem resurface, but also represents a wasted opportunity to improve the business.