I wasn’t going to blog about the Motrin fiasco, because I thought all of the points had been covered, really, and I didn’t have much else to say other than “me too” or “that’s interesting“. But what’s been festering with me is the idea that the lynch mob came out en force, and among the angriness, there were precious few level-headed solutions that were offered or positive perspectives to be had.

Companies cannot learn how to immerse themselves in social media unless they have guideposts. Real solutions. Real concepts that tie back to their business, and that they can implement in their existing framework.

And mistakes happen. Ill-conceived ads will get run, someone will leak insider information, bad judgment will prevail. So when we’re finished bludgeoning a company with a sledgehammer over how they’ve wronged their community, how do we help them to build on that learning?

If our answer to every social media or marketing misstep is to shred the companies who have screwed up, what incentive do they have to believe us social media types when we tell them that there’s brand building potential in transparency? How do we ensure that we haven’t made them think that social media is a snake pit just waiting to devour them? They’ve just stuck their head out and gotten it lopped off.

So let’s find a few positives, shall we, and focus on some outcomes and solutions?

The Twitter Community Has A Significant Voice
Twitter was once merely a niche, geek-infested (yes, me too) site with little mainstream application. But today, a big connection was made between a Big Brand and this little (?) universe for which so many of us are evangelists.

This is GOOD for showing the potential of this medium for distributing a message, or at the very least, for listening to it. If we can now take that learning and translate it into how we can also transmit positive, valuable messages, that’d be even better.

So for a bit of Twitter Done Right, a Success Story: A smaller brand learning to use Twitter for business results.

Transparency Isn’t Always Easy.
In this particular instance, the pharmaceutical industry has very particular regulations about adverse events reporting, and it makes it more challenging for them to engage directly with customers. Am I suggesting that they shouldn’t? No. (There were probably other channels available to them that they probably should have taken advantage of – would love to hear your suggestions).  But it behooves us all to understand the vertical in which we’re dealing so that the implications for transparent communications are fully understood.

While many of us have the most altruistic aspirations regarding social media’s potential, this has opened our eyes to the possibility that not every business can embrace it the same way.(If you disagree with the regulation in the first place, that’s not social media’s fault. Try the government.)

For a success story of overcoming transparency barriers: Listen to what Lego did.

Listening Is Important (And Expectations are High)
Monitoring and stewarding your brand are critically important anywhere, and even moreso now in the fast-moving social flash flood. The Motrin folks got skewered for not hearing the conversation the instant it caught fire on a Saturday morning (it took them about 18 hours to respond). The positive here is that setting up listening posts isn’t too complicated – there are lots of free and paid tools (disclosure: client) that can help with that.

Also, it raises awareness for the need for the human factor in listening (since the tools can’t decide what to do with that information once they have it). On the other hand, how the response is handled is often as important as how quickly it’s disseminated. So we can learn from this that listening applies not just to your social media efforts, but to your overall branding and marketing. It’s what facilitates you as a business being able to make a level-headed, intelligent response once you’ve taken stock and considered the feedback you’ve gathered.

There’s More Than One Lens Through Which To Look
Many of us were speculating about whether or not Motrin did any testing of these ads before sending them off into the big wide world. To be fair, not everyone was offended by it (I thought it was a little flip, but not tragic. And I’m a mom).

I’d be interested to know what if any kind of focus group work or testing or feedback they got on the ad before they ran it. It’s entirely possible that the audience they tapped thought it was great. Whether that included a bunch of moms or just their internal group and their agency remains to be seen.

What it shows me, though, is that we need to carefully point out to companies that it’s important to consider their brand through eyes other than their own (or those on their payrolls). We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again. Brands are defined by the customers, not the businesses. But there’s no such thing as a unanimous home run, and that’s ok. You do your research, you test, you ask for as much feedback as you reasonably can, and you go.

Apologies Amidst Crisis Can Make a Difference.
Saying you’re sorry and that you’ve heard the uproar is a good thing. You can change your tune, say you’re sorry you screwed up, and move on.

Success story: Nike admitted their gaffe with the Nike Women’s Marathon and earned some respect for it.  And by now, you know what Comcast has been doing to admit their shortcomings and fix problems on the fly. Network Solutions has been successfully stemming a negative tide through genuine, authentic outreach.

I’d really hate for something like poorly worded website and print ads to be a fear-mongering exercise that forces more companies to stick their heads in the sand in hopes that the SM firestorm never shows up on their doorstep. I do sure hope we continue to educate companies about the right ways to participate in this space.

But I for one would like to do so by shining some light on the positives, the learnings and outcomes (even from the missteps), and real solutions that companies can employ. If companies are truly not ready to talk to their customers, how do we keep from proving to them that all of their fears are real? In our quest to demonstrate that our voices are legitimate, can we also show that we know how to elevate the tide for everyone?

What do you have to say?

Photo credit: jvh33

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