All Publicity is Good Publicity Right?

Many people would have you believe that all publicity is good publicity. Sure it may get you in the news, it might even get you on television or get you a lot of “buzz” on your favourite social media site. That’s good right? Yep, it’s really good…if your goal was to get slapped three ways from Sunday!

I just read a recent post from Gini Dietrich of Arment Dietrich called Is All Publicity Good? Go ahead and read it for a second, I’ll wait right here.  You back? Alright, here’s one part in particular that caught my attention;

Sure, not all news will be good news. Even the best companies will have some negative things written about them, but it’s in how you respond that makes, or breaks, the game.

This is the other part that caught my attention in the comment section

You Can’t Contain Shit Hitting The Fan

Have you ever seen shit hit the fan? It’s not a pretty sight, and it’s a mess to clean to up.  It takes all hands on deck, a great plan, communication between said shit cleaners, and you can’t be afraid to put your hand in the crap.

If that’s the kind of planning that needs to go into cleaning up feces hitting a fan, shouldn’t your company be doing more to manage their brand? Here are a few things to think about before you have to clean up your next shit storm;

1. If you build it they will come: Alright, that may not be true, but here’s my point with this one…you need to be purposely building a strong community.  The stronger the relationship between your brand and your community, the more willing they are to “go-to-bat” for you, the more receptive they will be towards your explanation of your screw up, the more willing they will be to accept your apology.  Why? Because they trust you because you have done the same for them.  Yes, you will need to re-build the trust that you wrecked, but if there was no trust to begin with, the gloves are really going to come off!
2. Have a crisis plan: Please, please, please, have a plan set in place! A plan can act as your map as you steer through the muddy waters.
3. Do a fire drill: Sure, having a plan is good, but if you’re not sure how it works, you need to test it out! That’s the whole reason we have fire drills right? If a crisis hits, you should know what to do and how to approach it, you should know to stop, drop, and roll! If you have no idea of where to stop read Jeremey Owyang’s post
4. Monitor and Listen: I say both monitoring and listening because I view them as two very different things (which I’ll explain another day).  Keep your ear to the ground and listen to the chatter, engage, ask questions, find out what the underlying problem is.  Just don’t give away the farm!
5. Timing is everything: Because you’ve been monitoring you know what’s been happening.  Don’t  wait to long to respond or it may be too late to mitigate some of the damages.
6. Take Responsibility: Own what’s yours.  If your brand caused someone else hardship, own it.  If they screwed up someone’s bill, own it.  I don’t care what it is…this is part of that trust building that we were talking about earlier.  Own what’s yours and apologize accordingly.
7. It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it: It’s not always the message of what you are saying when you apologize, respond, or issue a statement.  It’s how your saying it.  Look at the tone of the message, look at it’s surroundings, keep in mind; No one can hear you say it.

 

Your turn: Do you think all publicity is good publicity? How do you “contain” it? Is it even possible?