Last week we talked about McDonald’s coming under fire during a hashtag promotion gone wrong.  The #McDStories hashtag fiasco wasn’t the first time a well-meaning promotion was hijacked and turned into humiliation, and it certainly won’t be the last.  Shortly after #McDStories went awry, Blackberry parent company RIM experienced the same embarrassment when their #BeBold promotion became a joke in the Twitterverse.

How do seemingly great ideas turn into disasters?  Although it can happen quickly, companies should not be afraid to host promotions on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.  A bit of due diligence and planning can go a long way.  Here are a few tips for preventing (and recovering from unforeseen) bashtag disasters:

First and foremost, consider your audience.  It never ceases to amaze me how some of the most brilliant marketing teams continue to come up with promotions that make them the laughingstock of the social space.  If you’re a fast food company, don’t try to tell people how wholesome your product is.  People don’t like having their intelligence insulted, so stick to common sense.  If you’re working to change your image, tell people why, don’t open yourself up to ridicule with an easily twisted meme.

Once you’ve come up with a great idea, brainstorm some ideas about how the idea could be misconstrued or twisted.  If you can’t think of any, find a few teenagers or kids and ask them to pick it apart.  The most juvenile retorts are likely the ones that will come to mind for a large part of your audience.  Don’t overlook them.

Utilize social media for research.  What is the perception of your brand?  How can you play off of that to get people talking about your company in a positive light?  Don’t be afraid to poke a little fun at yourself, it will make you seem more human to your audience and therefore, more likable.  Be sure to make industry-appropriate commentary, however.  Joking about geekiness with your tech-based audience is fun, calling the same group antisocial dorks is not.

If you make a mistake, take the opportunity to turn it into a win.  If people are using your promotion as a chance to complain, listen to what they have to say and respond.  Let them know that you hear them, and that you’re willing to make changes to provide better service to your customers.  Laugh at yourself a little, and turn the situation around.

Have a backup plan.  If you have a situation that goes south, be ready to handle it quickly. If you must, pull the promotion to minimize damage.  If you do pull a promotion, be ready to explain why, or you may have more talk about the mysterious disappearance of your campaign than you did about the original problem.  When dealing with a real live audience, you never know where things will go.  Being prepared to be candid with your customers and having a sense of humor will often get you much farther than tight-lipped silence.  Remember, the goal is to connect with your audience.  Listen to what they have to say, you may learn something about yourself and your business in the process

What is your favorite hashtag?

Very few people seem interested in proactive reputation management. The big bucks are often reserved for cleaning up a mess. However, being proactive is not only cheaper, but can result in preempting any negative issues that might get raised. Setting the scene is a crucial tactic that more businesses should follow.

And, if a little town in North Carolina can do it, so can you!

The email below was sent to me 48 hours before the start of ukulele legend Jake Shimabukuro’s concert in Clayton, NC. I’m a huge fan–don’t get me started–but I have never been to Clayton before and, to be honest, considered the trip a minor inconvenience in order to see one of my favorite artists. After receiving this email, I now know what to expect when I arrive, where to park, where to eat, and even how to get Jake’s autograph!

We look forward to seeing you this Saturday, Jan. 28, at The Clayton Center for the Jake Shimabukuro concert. We wanted to make you aware of a few things so that you have the best experience possible at The Clayton Center.

The show has sold out, so we are expecting a full house. Showtime is at 8:00 p.m. The Clayton Center will open at
7:00 pm, and seating in the auditorium will begin at 7:30 pm. Concessions, including beer, wine, mixed drinks, soft drinks and coffee, will be available throughout the evening. Cash and credit cards are accepted at all of our bars except the coffee bar (cash only) and beverages are allowed in the auditorium.

Parking at The Clayton Center is always free. There are two parking lots — one is located behind the building (Horne Street entrance) and one is on the corner of East Second and Fayetteville streets. Once parking in these lots is full, you may park on the street as long as you park legally. Please avoid any “No Parking” areas marked by signs or “yellow” zones.

Prior to the show, we encourage you to enjoy dinner at one of the following independently operated downtown Clayton restaurants — Clayton Steakhouse; Mulberry on Main; Lucky Chicken Peruvian Restaurant and Festejos Mexican Restaurant. But be sure to save room for dessert – we serve homemade whoopie pies fresh from Clayton Bakery and Cafe at our coffee bar.

You may also want to stick around post-show for an opportunity to meet Jake and have him sign a CD or other merchandise!

If you have any questions about this performance or about The Clayton Center, please feel free to call the Box Office at 919-553-1737, Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-noon and 1-5 p.m.

Peace, Love and Ukulele!

The Clayton Center Staff

Again, this is an excellent example of proactive reputation management, from a small theater, in Clayton, in North Carolina. Does your hotel send out a similar email to guests before they arrive? Does your restaurant email reservation holders with the night’s specials? Does your auto repair shop send out reminders of oil changes?

Take a look at your business and ask yourself, what questions might a new customer have before they [fill in the blank]. Preempt their questions or concerns and you’ll create a positive environment from the get-go!

San Francisco 49ers’ wide receiver Kyle Williams made two mistakes that very likely cost his team a spot in this year’s upcoming Super Bowl.  If the public humiliation of his blunders and the disappointed teammates weren’t enough, outraged fans took to social media to express their feelings about his errors.

Williams took a barrage of abuse from these so called fans on Twitter, where posts ranged from mere expressions of  disappointment all the way to hateful outrage and threats on the player’s life.  Fans suggested he burn in hell and take his own life.  The worst of the worst came from Twitter user @javpasquel (who’s account is seemingly no longer active. Imagine that.)

The Tweet quickly went viral, with other users adding their own commentary.  Fortunately, much of the commentary was directed back at Pasquel.  In typical reputation nightmare fashion, Pasquel swears that his account was hacked, and that he would never say anything like that.

Last week, marketing minds at fast food giant McDonald’s set out on a Twitter adventure that went horribly wrong.  After publishing several Tweets about their great ingredients and wonderful employees with the hashtag #McDStories, the promotion took a sharp left turn after followers started sharing their own ideas about the mega corporation’s offerings.

Tweets included mentions of horrifying health conditions and needing to be intoxicated to ingest the fast food.  Not quite what the company was hoping for when trying to share their guarantee of high quality ingredients and fresh produce.  The plug was pulled on the campaign a mere two hours after being launched.  A statement from the company’s social media director stated “With all social media campaigns, we include contingency plans should the conversation not go as planned. The ability to change midstream helped this small blip from becoming something larger.”

Kudos to you, McDonald’s for giving this your best effort, and for quickly realizing the error in your promotion.  My question to you – did no one on your enormous marketing team have any idea that this one might go south?  I can’t think of a single instance where someone would attach a heart warming anecdote tied to a fast food restaurant.  Seems to me that a promotion like this one would be inviting funny stories, often involving illness or intoxication.

This is a very large-scale example of why monitoring your reputation online is key – especially during special conversations via social media, please make sure you know what is being said out there so that you can take control of situations like this one quickly.  Have we mentioned that Trackur now offers hashtag monitoring?  If you plan to host conversations via social media, please make sure you know what is being said out there so that you can take control of situations like this one quickly!

Did you know that when you tweet, people can generally read each of your 140 characters?

Not sure if the, now former, Leicester City player Michael Ball realized that or not, but his attack on homosexual British actor Antony Cotton just cost him a £6,000 fine, and apparently his job.

Ball messaged the Coronation Street actor Antony Cotton, who is openly gay and plays the factory worker Sean Tully in the long-running soap opera. Cotton was at the time appearing in I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! “That ******* queer,” Ball wrote. “Get back to your sewing machine in Corrie you moaning *******.” The message has since been deleted.

Being somewhat “high profile” Ball’s Twitter feed likely didn’t need much in the way of expert monitoring, but your business is likely not as lucky. Are you keeping an eye on your employee’s tweets? Of course, you don’t want to sit and watch every single tweet they vomit up each day, but you should be aware of any tweet that mentions your brand, right? You should know if they talk badly about your clients, their fellow employees, or your own products.

Trackur’s social media monitoring includes Twitter (and Facebook, and Google+) so you don’t have to stand over the shoulder of each and every employee. If they’re talking about your company–good or bad–you’ll know about it.

(hat tip Simon Heseltine)

Everyone has seen the recent flurry of activity and the messages encouraging the public to stop SOPA.  Not everyone understands what all of the fuss is about.  In a nutshell, SOPA is an anti-piracy bill that is currently, and until recently, very quietly working its way through Congress.  SOPA would effectively give content creators the ability to pull their content from another site to which they have a copyright claim.  Unfortunately, the pulling of the content includes the ability for the content owner to demand that the offending site be stripped of advertising, the ability to accept payment, and can even be removed from the search engines and blocked by Internet service providers.

Still, how does this affect you?  Currently, the Internet is much like the Wild West.  There is a lot of territory without a lot of law.  SOPA is a very extreme response to the lawlessness of the Internet as we know it today.  At first glance, it may seem like a good thing to know that you could take action against someone who steals your content.  Not so much the case with this bill.

Take this site, for example.  We’ve mentioned popular music, film, and television shows in some of our posts to help get our point across.  We’ve used images from the aforementioned sources, although clearly we have not “stolen” intellectual property from them.  If anything, we’ve helped promote those pop culture references.  If, for some insane, unfathomable reason someone associated with one of these sources decided they didn’t much care for us, they could file suit.  These media giants have far more funding than this humble website, and would have no problem shutting us down, stripping us of our content, even getting us removed from the search engines.

Sites like Wikipedia would surely have multiple violations, and search giant Google would even be at risk for providing people with mentions to the sources that they’ve asked for when querying a search.  Essentially, we’d become afraid to talk about many of the things that made the Internet so great in the first place.  Because of this, people will stop talking about businesses online for fear of prosecution.  Imagine, no reputation disasters to deal with!  Unfortunately, the only reason you would no longer need to monitor your reputation online is because you essentially would not exist online.

Your employees are a direct representation of your brand.  Whether their portrayal of your company is accurate or not, it is one that is being projected out into the world.  If you own a locally focused business, this is especially important, as the image your community has of your business is largely created by the people that work there.  Being kind to your employees does not make you a pushover or open you up to letting them walk all over you.  It creates a mutual respect that encourages your employees to do their best work while portraying a positive image of your company.  Here are a few dos and don’ts for creating a positive work environment that will be reflected out into the community.

• Take the time to hire employees that share the same vision and goals for your company as you have.  This may take longer and cost you a bit more, but it will be invaluable in the long run.  Employees that agree with your mission will not only share that vision with your customers, but will also convey a positive attitude that can’t help but be contagious.
• Keep an eye on management.  Whether you agree with their methods or not, the behavior of your managers will reflect upon your company.  An abusive or negative supervisor will not stay a secret for long.  Even if you’re blind to their behavior, the news will get out to your community in no time.  Work to hire and maintain a good working relationship between your employees and your customers will benefit.
• Some companies are taking advantage of the current state of the economy and taking advantage of their workers.  Don’t be one of those companies.
• Yelling, threatening, and passive aggressive behavior are inappropriate and should not be tolerated.  Ever.
• Take some time to say thank you to your employees (and your customers).  It is a small gesture that can go a really long way.  People want to know that they are appreciated, even if you don’t have the budget to offer bonuses or raises.
• One bad apple can ruin the whole bunch.  Often, an overall feeling of negativity or hostility in an office environment is caused by one disgruntled member of the staff projecting their negative feelings onto the rest of the group.  It is even worse if this “bully” has the ear of management and uses their powers for evil.  Keep an eye on the dynamic in your office.  Do you have one person that is often complaining about others?  It may be time to take a look and see if they may be the problem.  I’ve seen office environments where this one bad apple causes a lot of great employees to lose their jobs, and management can’t figure out why the problems continue.  This is a problem that eventually will affect the reputation of a business.
• Who is answering your phone?  A customer’s first contact with your company is one of the most important.  Make sure that the person that answers your emails/phone calls/front door is one that is kind and polite.  Being greeted by a gruff, impersonal receptionist is a great way to send a new customer running for the door.

What do you do to ensure that your employees are representing your business in the best way possible?  We’ve found that scare tactics and abuse are not the best ways to whip a business into shape, so why do employers keep doing it?  We’d love to hear any great customer service stories you may have, or any horror stories –maybe some examples will help whip some employers into shape.  (If not, they’ll be great entertainment!  )

*If you all add a few, I promise to put in a few of my own! I’ve had some…  interesting.. jobs in the past!

I have a rule when it comes to customer service. I don’t privately talk about a customer in a manner I wouldn’t feel comfortable them seeing or hearing. That means no “Mr Needy” or “Mrs PITA” references–not even in a private CRM note.

Not only is it disrespectful, but that internal note could easily present itself to the customer. Case in point, Exhibit A:

Yeah, not good. Take the stance to not belittle your customers, ever! Not even those vague Tweets you think are just a harmless way of letting off steam. Even if the customer is not following you, potential customers may avoid your business lest you bad mouth them too!

So, to recap. Papa John’s? You need better ingredients, better pizza, and better manners! Corporately you may be in shock at this behavior, but the customer doesn’t interact with “corporate” they interact with the local store. Time for staff re-training methinks!

Thanks to Minhee Cho for tweeting and Ed for sharing.

UPDATE: Kudos to @PapaJohns for a swift and sincere response:

From everyone at Trackur, we wish all of our wonderful customers a very merry Christmas!

We hope you and your family have a very blessed Christmas and New Year.

We all know the value of location in real estate.  The better of a neighborhood you live in, the more your home is worth.  Better neighborhoods have better reputations, and boost your comfort level when it comes to the safety of your family and belongings.

As more and more of our lives become immersed in social communities online, the importance of your virtual neighborhoods becomes more and more apparent.  Where you “live” while you’re online (and who you spend your time with) can show a lot about your values, personality, and much more when someone is looking into your personal or professional life.  Potential employers, educational institutions, even blind dates are doing their research before allowing you into their neighborhoods.  Will you pass the test?

We’ve all got the inappropriate Facebook friend who posts embarrassing photos, spews political rants, or has horrible spelling and grammar.  Then there’s the not so safe for work Twitter account that you follow for entertainment value.  And that former coworker or boss who you friended out of guilt on LinkedIn?  They can all have an effect on how you’re viewed by peers, strangers, and even current friends.  Fortunately, if these “friends” are few and far between, most potential dates/employers/friends will be willing to overlook them.  However, if you take a hard look at your timeline and notice a lot of posts that you wouldn’t be comfortable sharing with coworkers or a classroom, you may want to consider relocating to a better neighborhood.

As unfair as it may seem, that crazy uncle of yours that you love dearly can have an effect on how others look at you.  Just like you might not want Cousin Eddie’s RV parked in front of your house at Christmas, you also may not want him taking up valuable real estate on your wall.