Using social media to address a PR crisis was the focus of the September Luncheon of the Georgia Chapter of the PRSA - which I attended last Thursday, courtesy of Steve Robinson of Business Wire.

Lynnette McIntire, manager, UPS Public Relations and Debbie Curtis-Magley, manager, UPS Public Relations discussed their response to a multimillion-dollar “Brown Bailout” campaign waged in traditional and new media.  It was launched by rival Fedex who claimed  UPS was taking a “government bailout.”  It’s all part of a dispute over the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2009, which contains a provision that would change the labor law covering FedEx workers. The bill was passed in the House of Representatives but the Senate has not yet voted.

Starting in June when the Brown Bailout campaign began, UPS had a crisis on it hands.

Needless to say, since that time, UPS has been busy countering charges and communicating their position.  The work has all been done in house with a very small team.  Not surprisingly, social media has been at the heart of their strategy to protect their brand and reputation – using Twitter and blogs to address questions and accusations made on blogs, Twitter and of course YouTube.

So what lessons has the UPS PR team learned so far:

- When the issue is emotionally charged, don’t get emotional – stick to facts and correct misleading ones.

- Pick your battles.

- Be nimble.

- It is helpful to have a monitoring program in place before a crisis hits when you have the luxury of time.

- Start Twitter accounts now to build a credible voice and presence  in the channel before a crisis hits.

- Know when to intervene with an “official” vs a conversational response.

- Educate internally.

- Monitoring key words can be tough – UPS the company and ups the verb yield very different results.

- Words without credibility fade.  The truth does prevail.  Errors, misleading materials, misguided conversations eventually get sorted out.

- Being young doesn’t mean you are comfortable with social media and commenting or engaging with the public.  Training is critical for everyone in an organization.

Bottom line, it’s clear crisis communications begins before a crisis.  Tools will change, but given the speed of social media, preparation is critical in containing a crisis caused by  a customer, competitor or an employee.

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Screen Grab from ENGAGEMENTdb Report

Brands are worth billions of dollars to companies, and companies will go to great lengths to protect them offline and online. Type the name of a brand on Google, and your first result is certainly going to be the website of the company who owns it.  The same can’t be said when you search for a brand on Twitter.

No question Twitter is gaining corporate acceptance.  A new Burson-Marsteller and Proof Digital Media analysis found that in 2009, Twitter surpassed blogging as the social media platform of choice — at least among the Fortune 100.  Or take Charlene Li’s ENGAGEMENTdb analysis of the world’s 100 most valuable brands. The most engaged brands like Starbucks, SAP, Toyota and Dell are using it with great success.

At the same time, in searching for the 100 most valuable brands on Twitter, I found roughly 75 percent don’t appear to own the Twitter page that bears their brand name.  And for some of those that do like @thomsonreuters and @amazon, the pages seem generic or worse like @colgate under lock and key. (The words “Welcome to the World of Colgate-Palmolive” don’t seem very welcoming.)

Take McDonalds for example. The top search on Google is, no surprise, a link to the company’s official website. Now type in @McDonalds on Twitter or “Twitter McDonalds” on Google.  Here are the results.

Perhaps we are just in the early stages of Twitter. In time I am sure that will change.  That seems to be the case with Facebook, where increasingly brands are taking ownership of their unofficial pages. And I should add most companies have Twitter sites with some variation of their brand like @BlackBerryCool and @DellOutlet.

Branding Your Twitter: Top Brand Best Practices

How important is branding?  I think a great deal.  Consider @sony. Its page is so generic that @8bitjoystick asked if it was the official Twitter page for Sony.

The cost to make a branded Twitter site seems nominal compared to the $200,000 plus I have read it costs to create a dedicated YouTube Channel.

So which top 100 brands have taken the time to brand their page and provide added utility?

I like the look of @MTV’s background.  They have made the page consistent with its followers.  So has Accenture.  @accenture reinforces the company’s traditional advertising.  @Toyota is not very elaborate, but I like how they lay out other links and identify their Twitter team. At least, @Ford shows their cars.

In the end, I know content and the level of engagement are far more important than the look and feel of your Twitter page. Comcast hasn’t suffered with an @comcast Twitter page out there.  Especially when you have a wildly successful @Comcastcares page.  But as Twitter takes off, we may find brands going after rogue pages more aggressively.

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Are you one of the Google 162?

That’s the number of people Google follows on @google. Or are you one of its more than 1.2 million followers? The list includes some pretty influential people like Jeremiah Oywang from Forrester Research, Jen Preston, the social-media editor of The New York Times, Erick Schonfeld, co-editor of TechCrunch, and Kara Swisher, columnist, BoomTown, AllThings D.com.

To be sure, @Google is not Google’s only Twitter page;  there are many others including @GoogleTutor (following 4,595) @googlereader, @AdSense, @googlenews. But the Google 162 does bring to light  company follow practices on Twitter.

If the name of the name is engagement, there is no way @Google could actively interact with 1.2 million followers even if none of them was a spammer. And its mission is to provide “News and updates from Google.” So it makes sense that most of the people they follow are members of the media.

Google’s following/follower ratio is the most dramatic. As a basis of comparison, I went to Charlene Li’s new analysis and checked out the most engaged brands in the social media space.  Dell was given a NA, because they do not have a primary @Dell Twitter page, but use many others to reach their customers. When asked about their follow policy, a Dell spokesperson said that they “do not have one on who we follow. Anyone could be customer or potential customer.”  And by sheer numbers, Starbucks is the biggest follower of the top 10 brands on Charlene’s list.

Twitter Activity of The Top Brands

So what is your company’s follow strategy on Twitter?  Follow some, follow all or follow none at all. Follow those who follow you, engage with you, or have something relevant to say?  And what happens if  you decide to stop following someone? And as an individual or customer, do you want to followed (or tracked?) It is either very flattering, very intrusive or the best way to send direct messages.

Your answers should reflect your company’s strategic purpose for using Twitter in the first place.  They should be as important as who controls the content, how often you tweet and what you tweet about.  As far as I concerned it goes to how you want to engage your customers and the public at large.

The subject has come currency. Robert Scoble has explored the topic and believes that “2,000 is his cut off for intimacy.”

Don’t tell that to Zappos Shoes (403.5464 following/1,046,122 followers) and Comcast (25,895 following/24,565 followers). Their engagement is clearly very different from Google’s.  For them, Twitter is a customer relations tool and marketing platform respectively.

As Frank Eliason, Comcast’s director of Digital Care wrote me, “Our follow policy is based out of respect for those taking the time to follow us and it allows customers to send us a direct message, which for many is their preferred method to contact us”

For some added perspective, I went to the  Twitter 101: A Special Guide for businesses that Twitter recently issued. It includes case studies and covers the basics such as how to get started and basic terms. Here is what they had to say about following on Twitter.

3. Find highly relevant people and companies to follow.

On my Twitter page, I have more followers than I am following.  That is a good rule of thumb.  You should follow those who provide useful information or with whom you regularly engage.  (Another a rule of thumb, no link in the profile, no follow.) It saves me the trouble of following bogus sites.

Ultimately, I think following is about building relationships and sharing information. Regardless of how expansive you want to be, it is important to reach consensus on  your follow policy before you begin tweeting. It will help define your intentions and purpose on Twitter.  I also think that your policy should be public and accessible from your company’s Twitter page.

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By now, many of you have seen or heard about the Dave Carroll YouTube video and how United Airlines’ baggage handlers mangled his guitar.  It once again demonstrates the power of authenticity, creativity and compelling content to grab attention and send PR executives reeling. 

Before I begin, I don’t want to beat up on United Airlines, but what happened last week is a case study on why companies need to take videos and their online response very seriously.  They did speak to reporters, but as this post will show, key social media channels were neglected.  And I am not privy to all the behind the scenes efforts that went on to work with Mr. Carroll and other upset passengers. I only see what the public sees.

The numbers of YouTube views and Twitter tweets are just staggering.  Like the infamous Comcast customer service rep video, Dave Carroll’s video undermines United Airlines’ reputation and hurts its brand.  

Numerous traditional media outlets covered the story (LA Times, USA Today, Chicago Tribune), but it was YouTube, Twitter and blogs that fueled the flame. In Carroll’s own words, here is what happened: 

In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didnt deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say no to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise.

It’s a great story of how a little guy took on the indifferent corporate giant, but the numbers behind the story are just as interesting.

By the Numbers

A comparison of the numbers demonstrates the viral effect of YouTube.  Consider the following. As of this Monday:

Sons of Maxwell YouTube video:

Number of views:  2,544,668 view

Number of comments: 13,288 comments

In contrast: 

United Airlines YouTube Channel

Channel Views: 84,791

Most viewed video:  86,415 views 

Most discussed video: 122 comments

Channel Comments: 115 comments (12 in the last few days; the rest, but one, over a month ago)

And look at the negative Channel comments with no response from United Airlines: 

And now look at Twitter:  9 tweets mentioning Dave Carroll on the United Airlines Twitter page compared to the flood of tweets about Dave Carroll elsewhere. 

Here is a random sampling of the thousands (can’t verify number) of tweets about Dave Carroll (note the number of video views from Friday: 1.325 million):

And let’s look at Facebook. 13 comments were about Dave Carroll, all were negative. Now, InsideFacebook lists the United Airlines fan page as “unofficial.” A lost opportunity to engage with the more than 9,000 fans. In comparison, check out Southwest Airlines Facebook page – more than 70,000 fans strong, and it’s official.

And note, no news from the UA pressroom (though they did speak with reporters).

Beyond the Numbers

So what should we make of the numbers?  Clearly, it demonstrates the power of YouTube, turning an obscure musician into a video star and corporate headache in less than a week.

The Internet became for United Airlines an open platform for critics, and United Airlines could not or did not want to keep up with public reaction. Their traditional news channel remains silent.  Their YouTube Channel has become a platform for snarky, negative comments with no reaction from United Airlines. And the 9 posts on Twitter don’t communicate, in my opinion, an authentic, heart felt apology. Making a charitable donation is nice, but it doesn’t address the the problem that prompted Dave Carroll to make a video in the first place. And Facebook is a non factor.  

And look at the content on YouTube’s corporate channel: repurposed commercials and promotional videos.  It’s no wonder the number of views for their most popular video pales in comparison to the number of views of the Dave Carroll video.  Yes Dave Carroll’s video went viral, but United needs to do a better job serving up connect.  Consider Delta’s inflight safety video:  1,313,428 views!

And I should also add.  I have overseen crisis communications.  Sometimes legal and HR issues require a low profile.  I am not sure this is one of those instances.

Recommendations

Again, I don’t want to pick on United. I am a PR guy after all.  Social media is forcing all companies to reevaluate their PR strategies.  To be fair, companies can’t compete with satire and entertainment in the battle for public opinion. But Carroll resorted to something that works: authenticity. And he did so in a way that was meaningful and entertaining.   It recounted an experience that we all can appreciate.  And so with all the resources that it has, United Airlines was crushed by creative storytelling. (Forget news releases and investigative reporting when you have music videos.)

First of all, United Airlines followed the first rule of crisis communications by apologizing for the instance and for trying to make amends.  It’s their failure leverage and integrate their online channels that is at issue.  I would advise them to examine its YouTube Channel for content and its response policy for comments. Customer service is an issue. Therefore have more videos on what you are doing to improve service and instructional videos on what to do if your baggage is damaged or lost. Like what Comcastcares has effectively done with Twitter, use this experience as way to monitor and respond to customer service complaints and reach out to the people who tweeted.

This crisis will pass.  One entertaining video will not bring down an airline.  And the good news is that the next video will have to be amazing to get this kind of reaction.

But here is my final point. Customers need to be careful what they wish for.  YouTube gives power to the people, but this video certainly raises the stakes of what is needed to get attention and make news.  Less talented people will still need to write letters and reach out to local news action reporters.

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The list below summarizes tools that analyze influencers or popularity, evaluate sentiment or number of mentions, identify the location of the person tweeting, offer trend analysis or focus on time frames. I marked an “X” in the category that I perceive is the tool’s primary utility. That is not to say that each tool doesn’t do other things.  Also as an aside, I personally don’t like the idea of sharing my Twitter password with a third party.  You will need to decide whether you want to share yours with tools like Twitstat and Twitterank.

This list is not exhaustive, but it may be helpful in trying to manage the deluge of daily tweets. (Please use the comments section for suggested additions and changes.)

As Pete Fasano and I have discussed, no tool appears to be the holy grail incorporating all these features. I for one want a tool that pulls tweets around your key word  search and ranks them by sentiment, influencer, and location.  I want trend analysis, not just a list of tweets, and I want real time data.   I was reminded of a comment that Anna B made in a post in ReadWriteWeb:

I have worked at several agencies working to put together budding social media practices, and have been pitched by many of the social media monitoring tools. I totally buy the concept– the ability to “listen-in” on consumers in their native space. The challenge I find is that none of the offerings provide the total package.

Some key things on her wish list:

• Efficient filtering of queries (most important, and often very poorly done)
• Sentiment analysis
• Sentiment plus (point in time, trend over time, compared w/ competitor, overlay w/ another issue etc.)
• Identification and targeting of influencers
• Ranking of “influential” or popular posts
• Comparison to competitive information
• Identification of “themes” within the conversation
• Easy, dynamic ability to chart and graph analysis of queries
• Self-service set up of queries (not a week or more lead time with “Customer Service”)
• Backward trending (and not just for 30 days!)

Of course all these tools may become obsolete if Twitter builds a version that incorporates these features.

Some of the source material came from  Spacefruit at HubPages, GreyReview and Measurementcamp. A big thanks to Mike Schinkel for giving me a basic HTML class despite a pounding sinus headache.

They say Twitter is replacing blogs, but still here is some love link to some of the Twitter blogs out there: Klout, Tweetburner, Tweetmeme, TweetScan, Twitalyzer.com, TwitterFriends, TwitterGrader, Twitterank, and Twitturly. These blogs can provide more information about the applications listed above.

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Well I joined the Twitter land grab. Ho-Sheng Hsiao, Adam Dill, and I are building a Twitter application that will help PR and marketing professionals. (And we want your feedback.) Mike Schinkel has been advising on the project.

Adam is an expert in data reduction and analytical modeling. Ho-Sheng is an expert in Ruby/Merb/Rails & product deployment.  Mike is an expert in database design and programming. Me – well I’m the PR guy.  We all have regular jobs, but we see an opportunity with the Twitter API to make an impact.

Based on a conversation I had with Scott Burkett, our application takes advantage of Twitter’s immediacy. Think of it as an early warning system. It helps you make sense of the sheer volume of tweets out there. Our application provides a distribution of other words that appear along with your key search term.  As a result, you can see which topics are emerging or gaining momentum around your brand or company.  

Another promising feature measures the influence of the person tweeting.  PR is about building relationships.  We care about what is being said and how.  But we also want to reach those who influence others.  This tool helps us identify the most influential.

More than a monitoring tool, our app is intended to help you organize and prioritize.  We we are trying to facilitate actionable intelligence that is necessary to ward off a crisis or capitalize on an opportunity. By the time an emerging Twitter trend hits Google’s top search results, it may be too late.

We looked at many other Twitter apps.  We think there is an opening for a tool that  analyzes key terms as well as the level of influence and location of the person tweeting.  There is no tool that combines all-in-one functionality that PR and marketing need.  

Anna B, at Organic, Inc said in best in her comments to Marshall Kirkpatrick’s The Future of Social Marketing posting.

“My biggest pet peeve is that most of these tools still return a high volume of JUNK that takes a long time to sift through to get to the golden nuggets…Many [of them] have some interesting functionality. I haven’t found one yet that is the total package.”

Soliciting Feedback

Right now we are soliciting feedback.  We know our application is still rough.  It takes too long to deliver results.  (We can’t request mltiple profiles at one time.)  Currently, we only give data for the most recent 100 tweets for any key word, but we could deliver over 1000 at a time.  

We would like to hear from you on what works, what doesn’t, and what we can add.   The tool can be customized to meet your particular needs. 

To be sure, we are at the mercy of Twitter.  Thcy control the shots and can change the rules at their discretion. We know that we are not alone.  Competition is fierce.  Each day it seems a new Twitter application comes out.  We knew that going in, but we believe we can make money from our version of actionable intelligence.

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