What an amazing experience.

Yesterday I returned from Seattle, WA. I had only been to this city’s airport a couple times but I had never had an opportunity to hang out, meet some people, shoot some photos and eat 800 pounds of salmon. Well I did get to do that but that’s not why I was there.

I was there to attend the 140 Twitter Conference put on by @TweetHouse and the Parnassus Group. Jennifer Leggio (@mediaphyter) introduced me to Jason Preston (@jasonp107), the man running the show. Jason was gracious enough to give me the opportunity to be involved and share a panel with some super smart and seasoned tweeps that anyone can learn from and should absolutely follow – Jesse Engle @engle (CoTweet), Shauna Causey @shaunacausey (Comcast), H.B. Siegel @twhb (IMDb.com), and Brad Nelson @bradnelson (Starbucks).

I won’t go into a boatload of detail about everything in this post but thought I’d mention some takeaways and things that I had learned that I thought were either useful, funny, or both.

New Things I Learned

During the Media Panel session we were given some great things to ponder and think about when it comes to doing media and news coverage using Twitter. I had never really thought about what the effect of Twitter would be on broadcasting and doing the news. In a world where people use Twitter to not necessarily double check their emotions before posting, Linda Thomas (@TheNewsChick) deserves kudos for being anti-spin and ensuring her facts are straight before tweeting. Major news media outlets would be doing the public a huge favor by employing more people like her.

Ayush Agarwal (@yush) did a killer job moderating the Dev/Biz Panel. Brilliant developers like the ones on the this panel have to keep all of us emo marketing people in check by ensuring that data, and the tools used to gather that data, makes sense and help support our business objectives methodically. Sites like Twitter and Facebook would not exist with these brilliant minds.

On the Brand Panel Shauna Causey and Brad Nelson both reminded all of us that when you are dealing with customers that are frustrated with your brand, spouting off on Twitter because of a bad experience they had, always approach them with positivity and a focus on treating them with respect. Treat them like you would want to be treated if you were in their shoes.

One of the most educational moments for me was the opportunity I had to learn about an industry that I’ve never known anything about. Even more intriguing was how these two guys I just met were using social media in an industry that I had no idea would have a use for it. I had the chance at the tweetup hosted at Seattle’s Hotel Andra (@HotelAndra) to learn how the farming industry needed social media. With some tasty local wine in hand, Greg Guenther (@greg_guenther) and I sat down with cattle rancher Jeff Fowle (@JeffFowle) and dairy farmer Ray Prock Jr. (@RayLinDairy). These guys are definitely visionary in their approach to use social media as a channel for educating people on the science and process behind where much of our store bought food comes from, how it’s marketed, what we don’t know as Joe Food Consumer, how it’s bought and sold, and the process for monitoring, maintaining and growing a lot of it – meat and greens alike. Great stuff.

Things That Made Me Laugh

Damon Cortese (@dacort) – “People like to click on shit.” and of course DBI, the Douchebag Index. That will be my next t-shirt purchase.

Dom Sagolla (@dom) – His late night red wine-infused Entourage story.

Johnathon Fitzpatrick (@jjtweets) – For his ability to get all “Mike Singletary” on the HootSuite Owl Mascot at 1:00AM.

….and the Magical Unicorn Story of the Night award goes to David Dennison (@DavidDennison) for his mace story. The first, second and third rule of David’s mace story is: “Don’t talk about David’s mace story.” If I told you, I’d have to….well you know.

Onward.

Some of the most well known thought leaders currently in the social media spotlight [@BrianSolis, @SethGodin, @ChrisBrogan, @Britopian, @Mediaphyter, @AaronStrout and many many many many more] did not get where they are by doing only what has been known to work. They’ve always focused on pushing us outside of the traditional approach, existing marketing patterns, and evolving the marketing status quo, focusing on the understanding of human behavior, it’s place in business. If there’s a calculated risk opportunity presenting itself that maybe others haven’t seen yet, they’ll try it and discuss it publicly. These folks know that business won’t get better and advance closer to that streamlined revenue utopia we all strive for unless they go ‘this way’ while everyone else is going ‘that way’.

Succeed and Expand

While being a copycat can be traditionally considered the purest form of flattery, I think it’s important for social marketers to realize that in the online marketing world, imitation is only imitation and offers no real value to what we are all trying to do if that’s all you do. News comes and goes fast and the competition for something fresh is fierce.

So You Have A Mountain…

…of data at your finger tips that you’ve accumulated. After lots of trial and error, say you’ve learned how to target and cultivate a niche market. What now? How can you aggressively capitalize on that market and get even more niche, dissecting it into more detail so that you can execute even more effective campaigns and conversations? You will need to get creative in the way that scientists had to when they worked towards dwindling physical matter down to molecules and eventually atoms. In some cases where there’s a mountain, there is a mountain range. After going to the top of one and slamming your flag into the dirt, set up a functional camp of explorers to delve deeper on said mountain, and then you should start heading down hill and start your next climb on the adjacent peaks to see what lies ahead (figuratively speaking of course).

Be The Modern Day Lewis & Clark of Marketing

Social media for me has really been more of an expedition than it has been a job. I think it’s really easy to get mired down in the day to day, pulling the same old story of coming into work, checking out industry specific news and influencers, retweeting some cool stuff, having some convos with relevant and meaningful people on Twitter and Facebook, and then heading home to throw down a Guinness and do it for another hour or so before bed. While it’s important to recognize, acknowledge and maintain all the things you’ve discovered over the last quarter and even the last week, the successes should only make you hungrier for more ideas, new territories and new markets. Never stop.

The Personal Brand: The Balance of Give and Take

Lastly, social media is un-ending monster-sized manufacturer of the personal brand. It has given those of us that know how to promote ourselves, our talents, our hobbies, our lives and everything we do, as a brand. While I’d be an idiot that should be slapped if I produced “Rich Harris the T-shirt”, I’ve always had some inkling of narcissism in my hat. I acknowledge it. I roll with it. I embrace it. However, I am also very aware that not only does the world not revolve around me and everything I have going on, more importantly there is an amazing amount of value in what thousands of other people are doing around me. Their marketing and business ideas, their ambitions, are all extremely important to the big picture and the greater good of successful business and networking.

It’s a great thing for me to simply acknowledge that there are others around me, but as someone who is trying to shine in his own little bubble, it’s more important that I extend myself and elevate those folks around me who also have great (and hopefully even better) ideas than me as well as great ideals. Not to cater to my hippie side too much here, but it’s important that you pay very close to attention to the balance between 1. Giving back to social media, business and marketing and 2. Building your own legion of followers. In my opinion, your value is absolutely and ONLY equal to the amount of value you place on others and how much you lift them and their social capital up. In this life, you get what you give and I believe that couldn’t be more true in marketing and business. The social information age is the perfect time and place to do it.

Part of your priority menu as a social marketer should always be finding people that are smarter and better at what you do than you are……and sharing their thoughts and leadership with others.

Other sources…

Digital Marketing Today: Leverage Social Media to turn your Thought Leaders into Sales people

Redmond Channel Partner Online: Become A Thought Leader

Thought Leadership Times [blog]

[Image Credit: Paige's Arting & Scribbling Blog]

Onward.

I’m usually not focused on writing about breaking news but being a regular user of Foursquare and then watching all the press and online noise yesterday about PleaseRobMe.com, I really started to think about open API’s, their possibilities, the good, the bad, and the bigger picture. While I’m not necessarily offended by what the PleaseRobMe.com guys have done (after all, we all have access to that data), it does remind us how a little creativity + ingenuity + behavioral data = influence. Regardless of how truthful or how it’s spun, we can essentially do whatever we want. I think the PleaseRobMe.com dudes used humor to reveal how ridiculous our assumptions are that we can just use all these tools so lackadaisically and believe that nothing bad could come of it.

It’s Just Data, Right?

There is a data collection procedure that they have done with small children when it comes to their exploratory behavior. I saw it on Discovery Channel years ago but I haven’t found a photo, video or article on it online yet. I will link out to it when I find it, or better yet if you know, send it to me and I’ll append it to this blog post and credit you with the find.

Basically, they would put a toddler in a big playroom full of toys. There would be a camera overhead in the center of the room. The child would also have a small concentrated red light affixed comfortably and safely to the child’s back on his/her shirt or overalls. For about an hour or so, as the child ran back and forth doing things, playing with different toys, hitting several different areas of the room every minute, the camera would capture the patterns of the child’s movements over a specified amount of time, drawing it’s movement patterns for the camera. Child psychologists would then analyze this crazy light pattern of movement to better understand attention spans and other developmental characteristics during playtime.

I think apps/sites like Foursquare are collecting the same type of data about adults and probably tech savvy teens too. I have two teenagers that are under my guidance with their data-enabled phones but it’s a little unnerving to think about how much easier it is now for the underbelly of society to learn about them. I’m not much of a conspiracy guy but there are some evil (and intelligent) mofos out there that see this kind of data as the framework for their silver platter of chaos that they can feast on to their heart’s content. API = Open book.

We Are A Giant Research Project

Think about all the sites and online tools that we love. Think about all those sites and online tools that we love and interact with often through multiple means that have open API’s. Think about the amount of data we are giving them about ourselves, friends and family. Just like when an MRI creates a 3D image scan of your noggin by collecting data, these types of sites are doing the same with your behavioral patterns and those you associate with. The funny (or odd) part about all of it is that we are voluntarily (and excitedly in some cases) providing this information to whoever wants access to it for whatever reason. More interesting is the fact that we are connecting apps like Foursquare to our Twitter accounts, which we sometimes connect to our Facebook accounts and other publicly available accounts like Tumblr, Identi.ca, etc.

Foursquare was designed to be a fun way for us to keep track of where are friends are (hopefully only the ones we truly trust), incorporating the fun/reward factor with badges, mayorship, etc. If you are diligent about using the app, it also is giving people an idea of what your daily routines are, good, bad, ugly and indifferent.

This behavioral data collection phenomenon is not just limited to Foursquare either. Think about all the areas now in which people make available data about themselves. MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and the fairly recent wider opening of LinkedIn’s API channels can you give you all the info you need, a 95% heuristic view of a person’s life, just shy of physically hanging out with them in their own living room. If you are a social/tech guy like me using all these services, people can now know your name, your aliases/monikers used (47project for instance), your work history, your hobbies, your music interests, what you look like, your schedule, social and business affiliations and the convos you have within those circles…..all of this is pretty much excessible through API’s. They can also, after finding all that out about you, wormhole into your friend’s lists and find out all of those exact same details about them if they’ve posted it anywhere online. This is a really gnarly concept. The gnarliest part about it is that we are feeding it by choice. It’s not all bad but there’s awareness and responsibility that comes with the use of all these cool apps and sites.

Mindfulness

If you are like me at all, waiting hungrily on pins and needles for the next new social app phenomenon to grace your news feeds, so you can be the first to slam it onto your Blackberry, iPhone, or Android, plugging in your login creds, getting on yet another grid, remember that the more of these sites and apps you use, and the more info you choose to reveal about yourself publicly online, should be kept proportionately equal to the amount of vigilance and proactive awareness you should have about the possibilities of your data being used and/or misused.

Other Great Articles on The Subject

ZDNet: Please Rob Me: Ethical or not? [poll]

Mashable: Are We All Asking to Be Robbed?

CNET: The dark side of geo: PleaseRobMe.com

Information Week: PleaseRobMe.com Solicits Social Theft

Onward.

Every morning I boot up my MacBook Pro, I start some coffee, throw together a quick breakfast, load up Gmail, Facebook, etc. and start observing,  joining, or creating conversations. You never have any idea what you are going to be talking about every day on Facebook, it just happens. The access to these conversations every day is starting a huge cultural shift in personal communication and all of it’s different levels of value and meaning. While there is no replacement for the real deal, we’re learning very quickly how to “read” the correct emotional tone of Facebook statuses, Tweets, IM chat sessions, based on who we are talking to, when we are talking to them, who their other friends are on Facebook, and what your history is with them.

We’ve also started joining groups and fanning pages en masse, not even for the sake of the participating in the group or page itself, but just to have an opportunity to announce publicly in an information stream….to let the world know….(diminuendo to a dramatic pause)….that you’ve just become a fan of “Standing On Your Head While Stacking Golf Balls On Tuesdays After 3pm PST” and you don’t care who knows it!

The Needle

There are a couple things going on now that I think we really need to pay attention to. There are benefits and inherent flaws in the mobilization power contained within an environment like Facebook. The feelings of immediate connectedness can almost distract us from the thought of what it really means to be connected and reciprocal with others around us.

Benefit

Facebook on one hand has made it possible for us to amass quickly with like minded individuals for a passionate purpose. It puts those that have always wanted to make a statement or do something big with their opinion but never had the right medium for it. They were too shy, too localized, or too overwhelmed at where to even begin. All understandable of course. This has opened doors for them and given them a voice that puts them on the map. This is a very positive thing.

Caution

There is another side to this coin however, a price or cost that is being paid. Unintentionally I think we are training ourselves, to some extent, to feel morally validated by joining a group on Facebook called “Cure Cancer” and that’s all. It’s as if somehow we’re giving back by joining the group publicly and opting in to messages/news from the group or fan page. Now I do believe strongly that the dissemination and forwarding of information by supporters is awesome and will never be a bad thing. It’s a tangible contribution and good reason to join a group. Fans of a cause on Facebook can get the word out quick and promote. But we can ALL do that on Facebook, with just the click of a mouse, and then we update our status with how much we love bacon and then play Farmville (FB games are not my gig).

I don’t have the stats but I just wonder what the ratio is of people on Facebook that ‘joined’ a great cause to the amount of people that have actually either volunteered 1 hour of their time or $1 to any charity anywhere within the last month. I very much include myself in the group of people that wasn’t really giving, and did so without really realizing it. I was joining, and still do, online communities with a premise that I support. I share their posts on my wall, I retweet stuff to spread the word. I just started to question myself on how much have I actually tangibly given back or made any real contribution to any of these philanthropic institutions or initiatives. When I looked back at my level of giving back vs. what I took for myself, it wasn’t looking promising. I was out of whack and am still in the process of scoping out a way for me to contribute that allows me to also keep the quality of the other things I’m doing in my career and family life extremely high. Both can easily be done. You just gotta get creative.

Balance

I realized I really need to step it up in the area of real, actual contribution. Even a dollar a month helps, or donating an hour of your time at a teen center, a homeless shelter, an understaffed public school, or an old folks home giving some people your conversation time to brighten up the tail end of their existence as they get ready to move on. Look through one of the big charity fan pages or groups you’ve joined on Facebook and see if there’s something in your local area you can check out and contribute to every couple of weeks for an hour or so.

Reciprocation, Social Responsibility

Not to get all preachy here but the online world is permanently infusing itself with our psyches, our communication, sense of belonging and community, all at the click of a button. We need to be careful to not get complacent with a subconsciously perceived substitution for physical interaction and presence, for actually going somewhere to help a perfect stranger that could really use someone to talk to for an hour, a family that could use a $20 bag of groceries this month, a dollar to Haiti, or donating some old books you’ll never read again to a school or two.

You know me, I love social networking and yammering on about nothing more than most of you probably ever will but I am reminded constantly by my kids how important it is focus on the tangible.

Onward.

I’ve been trying to ratchet up the frequency of my own blogs lately. While I’m getting closer to that sweet spot that is almost guaranteed to get me inspired to write on a whim, I still have much to figure out. However, there are a couple things that have helped me get going on the right path, regardless if I’m blogging for business, or for fun.

Tips on Catalyzing Your Creative Synapses

There’s nothing I’m going to say here that hasn’t been said before but I figure a few reminders never hurt. Here are a few of the basic things I do to keep the blog cogs turning.

Organize Your Inbound Information/Feeds:

There is so much content out there that it can be overwhelming when trying to figure out where to get specific content and what content best suits and spawns your ideas best. Make sure you have a plan for receiving your preferred information. Find the right client apps, tools or websites that will effectively deliver what you want and how you want it. If you have this part dialed, that’s half the battle.

Read & Infer From Your Analytics:

In the midst of writing and publishing blog posts, a lot of times the importance of analytics and keyword reporting are overlooked or forgotten as a source for ideas. We tend to glance at web analytics and cling to our page views and bounce rates instead of really looking at patterns in traffic source types, keyword clusters with common themes (possible evidence of a hot topic), and your post’s individual traffic to comments ratio (percentage of visits eliciting voluntary interaction). All the decent blog platforms come with some sort of basic analytics now and if they don’t, chances are there are some really great (and free) plugins for your blog platform of choice.

Reach Out And Touch Someone’s Blog:

This is one of the most effective ways to build a follower base yet it’s the most commonly neglected task for most new bloggers. Successful blogs really require a lot of TLC at home, but also require that you give some TLC to the notable blogs of others as well. Make it a point to comment on someone else’s blog at least once a day. You don’t need to drum up 5 paragraphs per comment either. Make it short and sweet. Get your point across and make sure it’s relevant and genuine. My traffic on my photography blog gained a lot of momentum very quickly by doing this.

Some Other Helpful Sites

BloggingTips.com

DailyBlogTips.com

TopTenBlogTips.com

Onward.

You started out years ago as a newbie online marketer. Over the last decade or so, you’ve pulled off some amazing things with viral marketing campaigns, banner ad placements, eCommerce, and  some huge partner promotions/campaigns leveraging everything under the sun effectively without spending hardly a dime and the revenue is rolling in. Your shrewd sense of where things are going next in the online marketing world has set you apart from your co-workers and your equivalents at other companies.

Your marketing cunning has been noted by journalists abroad and you’ve even done a few high-profile keynotes and panels. You’ve written for a couple well-known print publications with huge distribution as a guest columnist. You feel the momentum of your career getting more intense and gaining the kind of thrust you had always hoped it would finally get. Finally it is happening.

Then one year, the Social Media ship lands and an outpouring of tools and websites floods the online world. You quickly understand these new concepts, embrace them, become a master at manipulating them to sculpt yours and your company’s future and now you are right smack in the middle of the new era and excited about it.

After a couple more years of plugging away, you are a Social Media expert. A new opportunity arises. You get hired to do a job at a big company. You were hired under the assumption that you would be a bad ass at it because being a bad ass at it is what will make your employer happy by making them money. They will make money as a result of your genius strategy for garnering more social capital than their competitors could ever imagine. People are following you and the company that hired you on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and are engaged.

As doors start opening for you within the social media community, your frame of reference and circle of professional cohorts expands exponentially.

The Corporate Debacle

What should your company do with you when you actually become the bad ass they always wanted you to be? When directors and VP’s, who are also smart career opportunists like you, know that your success brings opportunity not just for their company, but for you personally as well? Should they be threatened by that? Should they embrace it? Should they be happy or annoyed with you that your blog has taken off, your Twitter following is through the roof quadrupling the company’s, and you are getting talked about in social media almost as much as your company is?

Due to the nature of social media if you are active, excellent at what you do, and involved in the communities, you meet LOTS of people, constantly and instantly. All the boundaries have lifted, the shackles of long distances geographically have been removed. We can find ‘like’ people right NOW. These people are from all over the world, many of them are smart as hell and respected in their industry and career space. There are so many benefits for your company as you mix it up on behalf of <COMPANY NAME>, getting involved, and being an evangelist for your company. Before you know it, the same amount of people are asking you about you as they are about your company.

A recent article from Sage Circle entitled, “Forrester tells analysts no more personal blogs with interesting implications for analyst relations” discusses how Forrester management had requested that all of their analysts shut down all of their own personal blogs. Forrester CEO George Colony was all down for non-competes that favored the employer because  “… non-competes ultimately help new and established companies alike to retain the talent they’ve invested in, further nurtured and who have become star employees due to their rewarding tenure and success. …”.

Where do you draw the line though? How can you justify keeping your SM expert at bay BECAUSE they did such an amazing job and are naturals at what they do? You can’t tell a Social Media expert to not be social. You can’t tell an opportunist to not seize the best opportunities. Anyone with even a hair of ambition knows this.

My recommendation on how companies should handle this is to recognize their Social Media expert’s success. Stay close to them and help them facilitate their career growth. Like any role anywhere, if a company supports the growth of an outstanding employee, statistics have shown they will be loyal and stick with their company longer as well and will continue to be in good standing after an eventual split if it happens. Invest in the relationship with your SM rockstar and it will pay your company back in the short and long term, regardless if they end up working for you or not.

Just remember that a star can’t make you shine if you keep it in a box.

Opinions & Conversation

Recently I was privy to an interesting conversation on my Facebook page where I had posted an article on CNN: “The government has your baby’s DNA“, written by Elizabeth Cohen. The overall premise of this article is the debate on whether or not it’s safe and ethical to store information about a person’s DNA, or not.

At first glance after reading the article, I wondered to myself what really is the issue “problem” with this concept? So at the risk of sounding clueless, I posted the status/comment, “…not sure what the big deal is here” and I was genuine when I posted it. I’m glad I did as it brought in some really great comments.

If you push conspiracy theories aside, and fundamentalist religious practices that may be opposed to it as well, what is the real harm in retaining that data? Here are a couple posts with varying and opposing views from that conversation on Facebook:

“…so from a law sort of standpoint you could be falsely accused of a crime, your DNA coming close to matching that of the assailant. In this day and age of CSI, Bones, NCIS, etc. people think they know what they need to know about DNA. You’d pretty much be hosed. Even if you were eventually found innocent your life would pretty much be a shadow of it’s former self.”

“Big concerns are the potential for abuse by insurance companies or future employers, as well as general privacy issues with this being easy to obtain. Do you really want someone with a little cash (e.g. aforementioned employers, government, tabloid reporters, political opponents, etc) to be able to find out you have Klinefelter’s syndrome, or a predisposition to schizophrenia?”

“So I fall on the side of making genetic testing manditory for every newborn. There are so many genetic issues (David mentioned Klinefelters as an example) that if treated early can help improve the quality of life of the individual who has it. Too many people find out about this stuff later in life and say “that explains it!”. Anyway, I think once the intial screen and notification is done, the DNA should be “separated” from its owners name and used for whatever (except cloning)”

Is The Extreme Polarization of Approach The Only Option?

I think all the points I quoted above from others are completely valid. I think the bigger question here, in my opinion of course, isn’t should we retain the data or not. The bigger question really is: Can we do it in a way that is ethical so that the benefits of this data analysis are yielded by humanity while the DNA data itself is owned, protected and secured by some sort of diverse council or committee of people to keep things objective when it comes to the release of information. Membership of this council or board can have a set of strict prequisites the aid in the protection of this data and it’s proper use. For example those nominated are not allowed to have a strong affiliation with any religious sect, political ties to special interest groups or parties, etc.

I know to some extent I’m oversimplifying it here and that with every well-intentioned person, there are 10 people with bad intentions unfortunately. The dilemma that I have morally is this I guess….why completely avoid something that can have great benefits for those with a predisposition to diseases, syndromes, conditions and other various health problems, out of fear that it will get into the ‘wrong’ hands? Why not try and figure out a way to have an objective process that is well thought out and governed by a globally represented scientific/healthcare community to manage and protect it for good use? Of course bad people do bad shit but if we shut down every innovative and positive idea intended for the better out of fear (like doing business online), then we might not get anywhere.

Onward.

OK…please excuse the tasteless implementation of the Kenny Rogers reference but I think it’s very fitting for this particular post. We should all know the importance and priority of managing bad PR, whether you are a huge publicly traded company, or an up and coming startup, trying to make a good first impression in your respective market. With this comes the responsibility of knowing how to manage and pick your battles through all the noise.

If you are on Twitter/Facebook representing your company, you have a few different responsibilities:

1. Syndicate meaningful, relevant and useful content (whether it’s your own or an outside party’s)
2. Monitor tone.
3. Respond to valid inquiries.
4. Research new potential prospects/markets.
5. Damage control.

Damage Control

For this post I’ll be focusing on #5 from the above list. One of the most important PR aspects of your job is watching out for bad media coverage, misconstrued news, inaccurate information/statements, manipulation of content for malicious purposes, and the inevitable “brushfire” that can take off like a flaming bullet-train constructed entirely of retweets, moving faster than the speed of Twitter’s API read/write count per second. (Holy run-on sentence Batman.)

As most seasoned PR professionals (which I am not) know, you need to have a damage control strategy and process in place for when the proverbial thorn comes out of nowhere and sticks your company in the ribs until you can find the right tools to extract it. Social media is obviously no exception and needs to be part of that overall process/strategy.

One question I’m asked often is, “How do I know when to respond to a problem tweet, post or person, and to what extent if at all?” While there’s no silver bullet answer because almost every situation is different in it’s subtleties, there are a few things you should think about.

Rules of Engagement

As a father of 3 active boys, I’ve learned to pick my battles almost hourly and am reminded constantly to keep this thought in my arsenal when doing my job online. In SM it’s imperative that you do the same. Not every complaint is worth yours or your company’s time. Some of them are worthless, some are worth noting and others require engagement on some level. Be efficient in your choice of customer entanglement. Here are a few types of posters that I’ve seen and how I responded:

1. The Strobe – In a flash, this person will usually say something once and with much emotion and superfluous punctuation, yet no detail, and then be done with it. Example: “<yourcompanyname> SUCKS!!!!!!”. No action to be taken here. Because they’ve provided no newsworthy detail in this post and most will see them as whiners anyhow. Chances are they are not an influencer. Nothing to see here folks, keep moving.
2. The Heckler – This is an upgraded version of The Strobe. They will post multiple times hoping that their emotional, yet information-less, rant sort of ‘takes off’ and has it’s own snowball effect. Again with this one though, most of their posts are emotional and not often substantiated with any background. You *should* keep an eye on them however because they do have the time and energy to put into it and will probably keep an eye on your company for mistakes.
3. The Investigator – This person is as thorough in documenting their issues as they are in their delivery of information to the web for all to see. If there is an issue, they will most likely have the story and the facts to back up their claim. Watch very closely for posts by these types and take them seriously. It is highly recommended that you reach out to these people immediately, opening up some dialog to validate their claims. Many times their content and/or story are capable of unearthing weaknesses in your company and/or it’s products and services.

Be Cool, Go With Your Gut

At the end of the day, you know your company better than anyone else (or at least you should) out there when it comes to public perception and reputation because you observe it all day. Simply continue paying close attention to all the streams of information that are relevant and act accordingly. Just make sure to triple check yourself before reacting to anything, and work very closely with your PR team and management to ensure that you are all on the same page when picking your battles, because there will be many of them for you to choose from, sometimes daily.

Onward.

A Couple Tips for a PR Crisis

1. Before choosing Twitter as an official and legitimate support channel for your company, make sure your PR/Communications team are ready to support your Twitter reps with a process for delivering details/status on issues expeditiously so that you don’t hang your social media reps out to dry for your customers to devour and lambaste them when there is a crisis. Sending your soldiers out to battle with no weapons or gear is bad.
2. Always stay in front of the PR crisis publicly, with a sense of urgency, and mean it. When a bad PR hit goes down for your company or client on Twitter/Facebook, especially when there are customers being effected (and in this case, they’re hooked in financially which makes them extra edgy), this is your moment to shine and wave the flag of corporate transparency to put them at ease. Customers know that websites have issues, that they get hacked, that they crash or become unavailable. Welcome to technology! However, if they can’t clearly see that you are coordinated with your internal teams with the latest updates, rolling out practical sets of expectations every half hour or so with the latest news, they will hate you quickly and easily. Let them know you are fighting for their right to have a good customer experience.

Also check out the Huffington Post article: “Bank Of America Website DOWN: 2010 Outage Affects Online Banking“. There are some good nuggets in there as well.

Onward.