How hard could it be to undo bad publicity?

In one of the questionnaires relayed to 160 Israeli directors as part of the study conducted by the Faculty of Management at the Tel Aviv University, the participants were asked to recall information on Israeli companies that was reported in the press.  The research revealed that the directors tended to remember the negative news published in the media regarding these companies, but that it was harder for them to think of positive news about the same enterprises.  In addition, bad news traveled fast.  The number of people who received word of a negative report in the media was almost five times greater than that of people who were informed of positive reports.

People remember bad news published in the media more easily.  This may be an example of the brain’s negativity bias.  Events that trigger negative emotions increase activity in the emotion-processing areas of the brain, such as the orbitofrontal cortex and the amygdala. These emotionally charged memories are preserved in greater detail than happy or more neutral memories, but they may also be subject to distortion.  This mechanism for the preservation of bad memories may have evolved to protect us against future negative events.

While we may not want to deliver bad news, it’s worthwhile to remember that people would rather know the worst than fear the worst.  Daniel Gilbert, who is professor of psychology at Harvard University and the author of “Stumbling on Happiness,” writes:

“Consider an experiment by researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands who gave subjects a series of 20 electric shocks. Some subjects knew they would receive an intense shock on every trial. Others knew they would receive 17 mild shocks and 3 intense shocks, but they didn’t know on which of the 20 trials the intense shocks would come. The results showed that subjects who thought there was a small chance of receiving an intense shock were more afraid — they sweated more profusely, their hearts beat faster — than subjects who knew for sure that they’d receive an intense shock.

“That’s because people feel worse when something bad might occur than when something bad will occur.”

The following case studies of the “Year 2010 in Review” series show how companies and organizations can harness the power of social media to deal with bad news and counteract bad publicity.

The first example comes from Visit Florida tourism organization that proactively used social media in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill to provide real-time information about the state of Florida beaches. Its website  http://www.visitflorida.com/floridalive aggregated updates from local twitter feeds, webcams, photo reports to tell the eyewitness story of what hundreds of miles of Florida coastline looked like.  This is its commercial that invited people to visit the Florida Live website for the current updates.

The second case study is Destination Hotels & Resort’s Wild Dunes property in Charleston, S.C., which faced serious problems with beach erosion in 2008 and saved its peak season with a social media campaign.  Through optimized press releases,  YouTube videos by the golf pro, photos, and a dialogue about Isle of Palms on TripAdvisort, the campaign strengthened relationships with customers and brought more business despite a serious image problem.  You can now read about the beach nourishment project and see the before and after images of the beach in the photo gallery and more photos and videos on the Wild Dunes Resort Facebook page.

Here are a few take-aways on social media and crisis communication:

1. Don’t hide from the bad news.  Use social media as a platform to engage the public and reduce the uncertainty.
2. Anticipate the questions and concerns of the public and address them in your social media campaign.
3. Gather as much information as possible to better understand the situation and don’t be afraid to enlist the help of others.
4. Be prepared to respond to questions and deal with strong reactions.
5. Stay flexible and adjust your course as needed.   Consider “what if” scenarios and develop contingency plans.
6. Update the public on the efforts to solve the problem and turn your challenges into  opportunities to strengthen the relationships with your customers and reinforce the values of your brand.

How would you leverage social media for crisis communication?

Related posts:
Year 2010 in Video Review Series: What can these videos teach us about the social brain, conflict management and social media? Part I: From baking pizzas to brewing conflicts

Video Review Series, Part 2: The Effective Video Apology “DOs” and “DON’Ts”

Video Review Series, Part 4: Humor in Conflict Is No Laughing Matter

“The only way to put out a social media fire is with social media water,” says Ramon DeLeon, managing partner of several Chicago-area Domino’s Pizzas stores, and he should know, as his video apology campaign back in 2009 was hailed as a big success by social media gurus.  My 2010 video apology review wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t mention this benchmark case first.  It all started when Amy Korin decided to order a Domino’s pizza.  After waiting for over an hour for her pizza to be delivered, she discovered that the pizza wasn’t what she ordered.  When she complained about it on Twitter, Ramon DeLeon took notice.  He contacted her immediately, informing her that the new pizza was on its way and promising to make up for the mistake.  And make up is what he did.  The following morning Amy Korin received his tweet with a link to his personal YouTube apology to her.   Duly impressed,  she forwarded the link to a few people.  And before anybody could say “pizza,” the video started spreading around the Internet and quickly became hotter than a wood-burning pizza oven.  Many good things happened to Ramon DeLeon’s business since then. And here’s Ramon DeLeon’s famous apology video:

Ramon DeLeon knows not only how to make pizzas, but also how to turn lemons into lemonade.  He understands that social media presents a great platform to transform a problem into something positive if it is done right.  By turning one unhappy customer into a loyal customer via a social media conversation, he was able to build relationships with many more potential customers who witnessed that conversation.  But it all began with a human connection and an honest desire to make it right.  Here’s how Ramon DeLeon explains the appeal of social media during an interview at SXSW 2010.

We have seen many public video apologies since then.  Some of them were successful, others  – not so much.  Apology is an intricate interaction, and unfortunately, our own brains can make things more difficult.  In her book, A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives, Cordelia Fine describes our brains’ propensity to justify our own bad behavior as a mistake, unavoidable or beyond our control.  However, we are quick to assume bad intentions in others when they act badly.  In addition, apologies directly bear on our sense of fairness and social standing.  The perception of fairness and improved status are rewards to the brain, which is sensitive to how we are treated and viewed by others.  Unfair treatment is a threat to the brain that triggers a stress response and often a strong emotional reaction.

The 2010 video apology examples below all involve someone apologizing on behalf of a corporation.  This presents a unique challenge in itself.  Social media apology is different from a corporate press release.  When people want to assign blame or litigate, they will chose a corporate entity.  When they feel frustrated, angry, disrespected and want to yell at someone, they will choose a person.  To release an emotional burden, we need a human connection.  Corporate entities don’t feel, people do.  Businesses struggle with this conundrum in social media: how can a large corporation appear human?

For years, lawyers have advised businesses not to apologize because it could be treated as an admission of the liability in a courtroom.  There is growing empirical evidence, however, that challenges this notion.  A recent study[PDF] suggests that apologies can help opponents reach legal settlements, especially in employment disputes, because they give the wronged party a sense of justice and satisfaction, resulting in faster settlements and lower demands for damages.  The nature of the apology makes a difference.  Apologies that accepted responsibility were the most effective in the experiment because participants reported that they gained respect for their counterparts.  Emotions play a big role when people decide what course of action they should take against the wrong-doer.

So, what makes an apology effective in re-establishing the sense of fairness, goodwill and respect?  Here are some apology “DOs”:

• Be sincere;
• Show humility;
• Show remorse;
• Acknowledge the damage done and the pain caused;
• Accept responsibility;
• Provide an explanation if you have one;
• Commit to a course of action that remedies the problem and prevents it from happening again;
• Ask for cooperation and, if appropriate, enlist help in remedying the situation;
• Keep your promises and do what you said you would do.

And the apology “DON’Ts”:

• Don’t lie;
• Don’t shift the blame;
• Don’t say you are sorry when you are really not;
• Don’t make excuses or justify your actions;
• Don’t detract attention from real issues;
• Don’t say one thing and do the opposite;
• Don’t count on or demand forgiveness.

As you watch these video apologies, which do you feel were successful and why?  Which ones failed and why?  What else do we need to know about the art and science of effective apology?

1.  BP’s CEO Tony Hayward issues a formal apology to address the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico:

Earlier, Tony Hayward told Britain’s newspaper The Guardian:  “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”

2.  Lexus General Manager Mark Templin’s delivers his video message regarding the voluntary recall of the 2010 GX 460:

3.  Toyota Motor Sales President & COO Jim Lentz tells customers about the company’s solution to fix the sticking pedal situation in recalled Toyota vehicles.

Related posts:
Year 2010 in Video Review Series: What can these videos teach us about the social brain, conflict management and social media? Part I: From baking pizzas to brewing conflicts

Video Review Series, Part 3: Leveraging Social Media for Crisis Communication

Video Review Series, Part 4: Humor in Conflict Is No Laughing Matter

According to Socrates, “An unexamined life is not worth living.”  It is this time again when we look back at the year gone by to see what we can learn from it.  All the exciting happenings in neuroscience and the explorations of the brain, communication and social networks have rocked this Brain Alchemist’s boat, or, perhaps, lab, in 2010.  There is much to learn about the human behavior in cyberspace (as in real life, for that matter), but one thing is clear: the Internet is a good conduit for human follies, passions and emotions. This makes it exciting, but also treacherous and ridden with conflicts and misunderstandings.  How people navigate the rapid streams of social media after minor or major collisions is the subject of my Year 2010  in Video Review Series.

I’ve chosen videos as my review material because videos are more engaging and dynamic, and they have been big this year.  These videos address a broad spectrum of issues, from business to social, from deeply personal to global.  Most importantly, they provide lessons of social behavior online that are relevant to those involved in community management, online collaboration, conflict resolution, customer service, reputation management, crisis communication and PR.  I will break them down into a series of posts to make our learning more digestible.  As always, I want to know your thoughts and your take-aways.

Part I:  From baking pizzas to brewing conflicts – Amy’s Baking Company

What do you do when a customer posts a negative review of your business on Yelp?  The response from Amy Bouzaglo, the owner of Amy’s Baking Company & Bistro in Scottsdale, AZ, made many social media experts shake their heads in disbelief and disapproval. After a local blogger and Yelp reviewer Joel LaTondress posted a critical one-star review, he was accused by Amy Bouzaglo of working for the competition, and then called “ugly,” a “loser,” and a “moron.”  Typically, that’s not the best way to handle customer complaints.  But there is a caveat to the story.  According to Shane Barnhill, who later sat down with the husband-wife team Samy and Amy Bouzaglo, all that negative publicity brought them more business.

So, what do we make of this story?

First, as in many conflicts, there are usually several stories developing simultaneously.  As we read the analysis of this conflict at various social media outlets, we can see Amy cast either as a “villain” who exemplifies bad customer service and lack of understanding of social media or as a “victim” of an unfair review who “didn’t back down from a fight” and came to the defense of her brand even if her immediate reaction may have been harsh and inappropriate.  Christina Baldwin said, “Words are how we think, stories are how we link.”  In a recent study, brain scans of a speaker and listener showed their neural activity synchronizing during storytelling. When the conflict is played out in public, the audience chooses which story to side with.  Telling your story in social media presents unique challenges because online communication is often disjointed and sporadic.  The group dynamics are likely to influence the outcomes because your messages are filtered through other people’s eyes.

Second, just because social media interactions feel less personal, it doesn’t mean they are less emotional.  In fact, the opposite may be true, due to the so-called online disinhibition effect.  The typical social constraints that exist when we talk face to face are minimal in online communication.  Anonymity, invisibility, lack of visual cues and accountability often cause people to say things in cyberspace that they wouldn’t say in person.  The lack of direct feedback makes it easy to misunderstand and misinterpret other people’s words and actions.  Rushed responses online can escalate conflicts.

Third, conflict can be a form of entertainment.  This may sound bad, but it is our cultural and social reality: books, films, stories all have some kind of conflict as their driving force.  Conflicts played out in social media run a higher chance of turning into entertainment for some.  Our brains are driven by curiosity and the urge to search for novelty.  When the brain anticipates something new and searches for patterns, it increases levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is responsible for focused attention and more pleasurable experience.  This can explain the beneficial effect of negative publicity.  Some people will go and check out the place just because it was on the news.

Finally, when a brand has to give up rigid control over conversations happening in social media, it becomes crucial to exert even more control over the non-negotiable foundations of the brand, such as the quality of the product or service and the values the business stands by.  People may be willing to justify and forgive one instance of emotional outburst against a customer, but if poor customer service becomes a pattern or the food is bad, no amount of publicity, positive or negative, will make those customers come back.  The best way to protect your brand against unfair online attacks is to have loyal customers and evangelists that are willing to come to your defense.

Take-aways:

1. Online reputation is about perceptions, not intentions.  Assess and monitor the stories you and others communicate about your brand through social media.
2. Don’t say online what you wouldn’t say to a person face-to-face.
3. Dare to be a contrarian, but welcome different opinions and perspectives.  Novelty, diversity and curiosity stimulate the brain. The magnetic pull of conflict can be used to boost creativity, innovation and change.
4. Honor your loyal customers and evangelists. The strength, visibility and success of your brand depend on them. They are also your best defense against online attacks.

What tips do you have for managing online conflicts and controversies?

Related posts:
Video Review Series, Part 2: The Effective Video Apology “DOs” and “DON’Ts”

Video Review Series, Part 3: Leveraging Social Media for Crisis Communication

Video Review Series, Part 4: Humor in Conflict Is No Laughing Matter