In today’s AHA Flip Cam Friday video, Ruth talks about what to do if there are negative conversations about your organization on social media sites.
AHA Flip Cam Friday – Negative Social Media
How To Respond Using Social Media When Something Goes Wrong
There was a great piece online last week at theglobemail.com that gave five tips to Air Canada about how they may have better handled a PR issue that happened recently. While the piece is focused on an incident with the airline, there is wealth of knowledge in here for any organization. It’s worth a read.
From what we understand, a young boy who is fighting a terminal illness travelled to New York City recently to live out one of his life wishes. At some point during his travels, with Air Canada, his wheelchair – which is a necessity for this young fellow – was damaged. His aunt tweeted about it, which, given the situation, touched many people and created some buzz online. The thing of it is, while it turns out that Air Canada was working on the situation, they weren’t communicating this to anyone – including the people discussing it on Twitter.
AHA Take
I am not sure whether Air Canada didn’t know the conversations were happening or decided that they weren’t important enough to respond to. Either way, their silence hurt them. Air Canada doesn’t have the best brand reputation and this incident, which was about a sick little boy and a dream trip for him, didn’t help much.
We are always cautious about criticizing how an organization handles things because you don’t know what goes on behind closed doors. In this case, I think that’s part of the challenge. The public (which are made up of a large group of people who travel on airplanes) feels that too much goes on behind closed doors with Air Canada. We feel like Air Canada doesn’t respect us or care enough to communicate with us. It wouldn’t have taken very much effort to get online and explain that they were on this. They could have explained easily that they were fixing the wheelchair AND were going to provide this young boy and his family with some additional perks to make up for the inconvenience and challenges they faced because of this incident. But they didn’t.
The young boy now has his chair back and is excited that he’ll be taking his cousins to Disney World, another wish of his, as Air Canada has offered to take them.
It’s a shame that Air Canada didn’t take the time to tweet or announce that they were doing the right thing. It would have been a lot easier than taking yet another hit to their organizational reputation.
Social Media Usage
There is a great blog post on edudemic.com that showcases some interesting facts and stats about how people use social media. It’s definitely worth a read.
AHA Take
We often receive calls from potential clients where the person calling is concerned that their organization is late to the social media party. I think that more organizations than most of us realize are still working out how social media fits into their overall communications strategy. It may seem like yours is the only organization out there that isn’t engaged in social media, but that isn’t the case. I believe that how much an organization moves into and how proactively you use social media depends on several things, including how it can fit into your communication strategy, how it will support the core business/organizational objectives, the target market or community that you would like to connect with, and the ability to effectively resource the area of social media.
Whether an organization is proactive online or not, I believe it is crucial to understand what is being said about your industry/area of business, about your organization, your competitors and the people in your business. We’ve heard for years that the best conversation skill you can have is the ability to listen. Well, that goes double for social media.
Check out the stats and facts in the edudemic.com blog post, they give a good snapshot of how people are using social networks to connect. And odds are good that somewhere out there, they’re discussing your organization in some way.
Media Relations In A Social Media World
Do You Have A Social Media Policy In Place?
At AHA, we followed the Domino’s issue and several others quite closely and spent a great deal of time deconstructing the challenges that are now common place because of the widespread adoption of social media.
This article is worth a read. If you don’t have a social media policy in place, it’s important to develop and implement one – no matter how big or small your organization is.
AHA Take
As I write this blog post, I am heading off to meet with a client that is anxious to put a social media policy in place for their organization. We have developed a first draft of the policy, set a straightforward and easy to follow process and protocol. Today, we are going to spend some time going through it and poking holes in it, ensuring that it will work for everyone in this large and diverse organization. This means meeting with a range of individuals who have their own opinions of what is a reasonable social media policy. It’s a step that I think is very important when it comes to putting a social media policy in place. It’s one thing to write a comprehensive policy, quite another to hear feedback from real people who are being asked to adopt this policy.
Many organizations have a media relations policy in place. Only assigned spokespeople have the authority to speak to the media (or other stakeholders) on behalf of the organization. This is standard in our world. However, in all the years I have been doing this, I have only ever heard of a handful of times when a journalist contacted an employee directly, rather than go to the CEO, another senior executive or the communications person. There was usually a specific reason for this approach. Social media is completely different. Staff members have personal Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts. They might blog. They may comment on other blogs. There are new avenues of expression that we’ve never had before. And sometimes people forget just how public social networking sites are. Sometimes, they just need to be reminded and have guidelines and boundaries put in place. A social media policy is a good start.
When you develop yours, make sure it is a policy that is relevant for the people it is written for. Don’t assume that you know or understand the challenges they face. Develop a draft and ask them: “Does this provide accurate and appropriate guidelines for you when it comes to social media usage, relevant to your role at this organization?” This step will help develop a good social media policy.