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Author’s Note: Some editing may apply to the article below. This article was originally 2 hours worth of unedited vitriol, inspired by the inordinate amount of time it takes me to remove spammers from my follower list on Twitter. (I block because I care about the health of the network.) I would like to state for the record that I am ~not~ a consultant and my field of employ does not position me as a social media anything. I am fully employed at a .com company that is none of your business because my opinions here are completely my own and in no way reflect those of my employers past, present or future, as is the case with all my articles.

Listen. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “oh god, another contrarian anti-internet jerk who just doesn’t get it”, right? Well, here’s the problem, assuming there is anything to “get” in the first place, I feel as though I do get it. So let me explain to you in no uncertain terms why I feel that you have to be very picky about how you approach the broad spectrum of things on the internet that have fallen under the somewhat dubious umbrella of “social media” – what follows applies mostly if you are a company or work for a company which wishes to employ this miracle tool to win friends and influence shoppers. Those of you who are largely concerned with keeping up with your friends and picking up some new novel on Amazon are exempt from this lecture and may go on about your business.

Someone, somewhere, right now may have just friended you or followed you or emailed you or called you with the intent to sell their services to you as an expert in social media. It may not have even been a real person, it may have been someone’s automated robot, spitting out update after update linking back to their blog or company website. This person may have been trying to convince you of one of the following things:

• You NEED to be a part of social media in order to make it in business.
• You NEED to be a part of social media to make it on the internet.
• You NEED to have dozens of automated accounts, linking to affiliate programs, so you never have to work another day in your life.
• You NEED the services of a “qualified social media expert” (really? what are the qualifications for that?) just like them to make this happen, because you, poor soul that you are, don’t get it.
• You NEED to have “conversations” with your customers, every last damn one of them, and you can somehow find all of your customers through the internet regardless of your business model or demographic.
• You NEED to be light and human and approachable on this wild, wooly internet, or your customer base will think you’re just a mean old corporate giant and won’t trust you anymore.
• You NEED to make sure that you do your campaigning virally from now on, and harness the power of the crowd.

If you are hearing any or all of the above statements, I want you to take a deep breath, take a good long look at this person telling you these things, and realize that you may be dealing with a blithering asshole, a liar, or an asshole liar. This individual may be feeding you a complete line of bullshit in order to help themselves to your money. This individual may also be intelligent, well-rounded, and respectful of you and your business. It is a VERY difficult line of judgement, and I urge individuals and businesses out to make a name for themselves (on the internet or otherwise) to tread carefully when it comes to the internet, since without self-education and experience it is very easy to get taken in by an enthusiastic pitchman who just wants you to “embrace the new media”.

Lest you think I’m just out to start trouble…

There are many ways in which acknowledging popular social media outlets could benefit a business, and just as many if not more ways that it can harm a business. It shouldn’t be a question of if your company will be participating in the various activities available on the internet, but when, how, and most importantly why.

In an extreme negative example, let us take the “Domino’s YouTube incident” into consideration for a moment. A couple of young employees of a particular Domino’s store took it upon themselves to film themselves playing with food that was intended to be delivered to a customer in a way that was clearly pretty unsanitary or at the very least against guidelines. They posted said video to YouTube, a content delivery service which allows anyone with an account to upload video files to share with as few or as many people as the account holder wishes. Due to the fact that this incident was rather outrageous, the link to that video spread a lot further than those two employees’ friends, and wound up being a huge embarrassment to the entire franchise. This in turn resulted in the President of Domino’s himself recording a response and distributing it through YouTube also. The original, incriminating videos were the kind of mildly gross, slightly shocking, pure-amusement dreck that tends to go popular, and unfortunately none of the major news outlets who covered the story back when it first occurred managed to get the number of views the video managed to receive prior to the suspension of “whiteair2″, the original account the videos were posted on.

Some would argue that if Domino’s had been proactive in their approach to social media in particular, this may not have been “as bad” or may not have happened at all. Yes and no, would be my response to that claim. Would it have been worthwhile for Domino’s to monitor for the presence of its company name on the internet, and be prepared to respond should anything negative start to gain ground? Absolutely, because as demonstrated here, things can occur which get people to talking with one another, and eventually things like this can leave the walled gardens from which they sprung. Everything I’ve heard about public relations suggests that good PR has legs and will generate positive influence that may bring in future customers. Bad PR, however, seems to have a hangar full of high speed jets which can result in misconceptions, smug disdain, and complaints that spread faster and linger for much longer.

Yet this monitoring is by no means exclusive to “social media” outlets such as YouTube or Twitter, and likewise, no amount of canned responses thrown up on YouTube, nor Twitter accounts/posts to mitigate the seemingly endless stream of whiny, self-righteous haters, can stop this sort of thing or even improve the company’s standing with either the internet using people they are supposedly reaching out to or more importantly the greater public. The extremely scripted response from the Domino’s President clocks in (as of today) at 731,695 views, according to the official posting of the video, which is downright pathetic given the amount of mass media attention this story received. However, reposts may also carry views which aren’t counted in this number. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the articles I have read only give passing nods to Domino’s response to the matter, and focus more on the shock-and-awe blitz that the original videos seem to have stirred up to begin with.

What this story has to teach is:

• Not being aware of how you and your company can be portrayed in the public by average citizens using an easily accessible set of tools can be disastrous.
• Trying to mitigate a terrible PR situation by poorly using the tools that seem to have been the “cause” of the problem does not automatically win you the love of those same detractors. Handling the situation quickly and professionally might, if you’re lucky.

Note: A commenter brought up a good point RE: my recap of the Domino’s situation and I clarified my thoughts in a follow-up comment. Scroll down and read if you’re interested. Thank you, Liz, for the opportunity to clarify those points.

So what about my business?

What this has to do with you, and the slick individual who thinks it would be a good idea to sign your company up for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and all these other “popular” sites, is very simple. It starts by asking yourself a very simple question: “Does my company have something tangible to gain by actively interacting with its customer base through one of these outlets?”

These days, the answer to the second question is almost guaranteed to be a partial yes, unless you’re doing something like making custom wagon parts for the Amish, then maybe not so much. Yet before you invest all your money in a fast-talking internet “guru” (which is a word to watch out for, by the way, since most of these would-be rinpoche have dubbed themselves gurus), hire 6 more people just to re-tweet press releases for you, and figure out how to talk about your product on the YouTube even if no one cares, there are a couple more questions you might want to ask yourself, your staff, and your magical social media consultant:

• Why should I be proactively seeking criticism and input from a relatively small portion of my customer base using services like Facebook and Twitter when I can dedicate more resources to a more balanced approach that entails monitoring a larger portion of the internet INCLUDING those sites to create a good cycle of reactive implementation of better features and services?
• Does my company have the ability to put someone, or several people, in “the line of fire” to respond almost instantaneously to any situation that is made aware to the public, knowing that these people must be given the freedom to respond in a largely unscripted manner if they are to be at all effective in coming across as genuine?
• Does my company – or my consultant – understand the difference between marketing, public relations, and reputation management?
  • Does my company – or consultant – understand that these initiatives are related, but are still different and will require different disciplines, approaches, and sometimes people to be successful?
• Does my company know when to draw the line and handle a situation through dealing with the traditional media outlets, understanding that for every customer on the internet, there are several more who will not have access to those broadcasts from us?
• Is my company interested in self-promotion and press releases, or direct customer relations and expanding customer service contact methods?
• What kind of things are being said about my product or service on the internet?
  • What kinds of things are being said about my competitors’ products or services?
  • What kind of things are being said about directly related or easily confused products or services?
  • What kind of things are being said about my entire niche or section of business?
  • What kind of things are being said specifically by people in my demographic for any one or all of these things?
• (And of course the pre-work to all of that previous short list of questions, in case that didn’t scare you enough:) Does my company have demographic information about our business model, niche, or industry as well as a basic understanding of the terms and topics related to that, and an ability to dedicate resources to that research before, during and after any phase of a long-term customer facing campaign on the internet?

If your “social media expert” or “guru” or just plain old consultant cannot help you address any one of the above questions, then they are not doing you a service, but a very distinct disservice. The internet is a fairly complex emotional and social landscape, but so is a television viewing audience, a base of radio listeners, and the readership of a magazine or newspaper. The key factor here is that you are always dealing with answering the question of “How does my business interact with the public?” If you let yourself get blinded by cheap tactics under the guise of “better SEO” or “getting with the times” or some kind of misguided free love approach to business on the internet that you have no plans of actually embracing, then you are going to be about as effective on a site like Twitter as a man wearing a sandwich board in the subway screaming about the end times and handing out leaflets to everyone who dares get within five feet of him. Sure, being in the subway is great exposure, and he’s yelling so everyone can hear him, he’s definitely getting to a lot of people, and he’s delivering his leaflets of content to really spread the word around. The trouble is, they all thing he’s annoying, insane, or both, and they’re probably right. It’s a terrible way to do business either out on the street or through channels like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.

Summary:

• Think before you act.
• Never abandon or detract from your bottom line for what could be a trend, or go against your core business model.
• Do not cave to the pressure to be on Twitter simply because you’re paying someone to tell you that it’s a good idea. And fire that guy who can’t give you at least one good reason why it is genuinely good for your business.
• Be aware that the internet can impact your PR, but handle the situation according to what is right for your business, not according to the media used for delivery. (Would you run a counter local Fox news investigation if a local Fox news investigation caused you a PR flap? Probably not.)

Thanks, and happy interneting!

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