6. A viral headache
You're probably familiar with the Motrin fiasco: An online video attempted to be humorous in pointing out that carrying a baby around can hurt your back. Mommy bloggers took offense and marshaled their minions to blast Motrin maker McNeil Consumer Healthcare. Motrin marketers had hoped the video would go viral as a kickoff to a new marketing campaign by Taxi. Instead, McNeil took down the video (useless) and abandoned the rest of the campaign.
What was notable about this particular backlash was that it broke on Twitter -- which means it spread almost instantaneously. McNeil should have had people monitoring Twitter, people who were trained in social media interaction, says Greenstein. "Social media crisis situations call for different responses than the spokesperson trained to talk to the media might come up with," he says.
Twitter is just another example of the tightening of the feedback loop between products and consumers, he adds. "You can wake up the next morning and find you're the number-one villain on Twitter. That's a real risk for brand marketers. You can also wake up and find you're a hero."
What we can learnDesignate people to listen to all communication channels 24/7, and empower them to respond to immediately to queries, rants and raves.
<< Previous pageSusan Kuchinskas is a freelance writer who has written for Adweek, Business 2.0, M-Business and internetnews.com.
