The responsibility game
23 June 2009
Social media can’t be spun or controlled like traditional media. That’s why you need an entirely new approach when deciding who’s responsible for monitoring and responding to social networks.
In the month since I penned my last column for Nett, I heard of three outrageous examples of social media gone nuclear. First, Amazon reclassified a huge number of gay-themed books as ‘adult’ content and ignored the uproar from its customers. Then Domino’s Pizza was pranked by two employees who made a disgusting video of faux food preparation, posting it to YouTube. Finally, an Adelaide McDonald’s was shown up – for real – as a filthy late-night eatery. Each of these brand-wrecking moments could have been prevented, if someone, somewhere in these organisations, had kept their eye on the ball.
In the aftermath of these entirely preventable corporate tragedies, many small businesses will be wondering how to keep their finger on the pulse of social media, and, more importantly, who should be doing it. If you already have someone who handles corporate PR or marketing, it seems like a no-brainer to saddle them with this task. Tick, problem solved.
If only it were that easy.
Social media is all about authenticity, while PR and marketing (without putting too fine a point on it) thrive on duplicity. Assigning someone with a background in PR to monitor and communicate through social media is a recipe for disaster. The forms are fundamentally different and just as fundamentally at odds. The moment that a single false note is transmitted via social media, all credibility in the medium is immediately lost – credibility it takes quite some time to rebuild. So scratch the PR folks, and put marketing on hold. A different approach is called for.
Some assume that sticking the CEO or business owner out in front, as the ‘point man’ for social media, will do the trick. This, potentially, is an even worse manoeuvre. CEOs are selected for their management skills, not their ability to communicate authentically across a still-spanking-new medium. And while a CEO could possibly speak authentically via social media, most don’t have the time or attention needed to work with the medium on a consistent basis.
Something more radical is called for, something more comprehensive. Instead of relying on ‘message control’ and all the other tricks of the PR trade, why not simply let all of the employees of the organisation act as ambassadors for the firm? Yes, it’s messy, and yes, it will lack the coherence of a single point of contact, but it has two strong points in its favour: it will smell authentic, and it will distribute the load throughout the organisation.
Monitoring social media is everyone’s job. This marks the gulf that separates social media from the carefully managed media and communications that have preceded it: social media is, by its nature, anarchic, uncontained and uncontainable.
The only way to successfully approach it is through an organic whole – the whole of the organisation must be involved, from the CEO down. Yes, there will be mistakes, but they’ll be authentic mistakes and you’ll be quickly forgiven. The way forward, in the age of social media, looks like nothing that has come before.
Mark Pesce is a tech futurist and panellist on the ABC's New Inventors. #
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