Zachery Sniderman’s article, How to: Recover from a Social Media PR Disaster, makes for interesting and entertaining reading. He covers the varying types of mistakes that can be made on social media, along with possible ways of dealing with such mistakes. Overall, Sniderman covers the topic in suitable depth, but certain issues are skirted around.
Sniderman opens by enticing the reader into a situation to which most people can relate; almost everyone can remember a time when they have suddenly had the sinking realisation that they have made a bad mistake. The author then goes on to discuss such mistakes in the context of social media and mentions noteworthy examples of disasters on the social networking scene. He points out that while some mistakes have proved detrimental to the individual or company in question, some faux pas have in fact been turned around in time to prove beneficial. The examples Sniderman uses in his article portray a range of different social media slip ups; it is likely that most people will have committed one or more of them in their lifetimes.
After a successful introduction, Sniderman then delves into the main types of social media PR disasters. He accurately points out that some are simple slips, such as posting an inoffensive link to a humorous video or a personal message, and that such mistakes are easily corrected and don’t tend to cause lasting damage. However, he also lists slips which can cause serious damage. He claims that, “of these, there are largely five main types: The inappropriate opinion, the insensitive statement, the early release, the false reward and the hack” (Sniderman, 2011).
Perhaps the most interesting of the five types is “the false reward,” chiefly because it was not something I had heard of before reading the article. It seems that companies have been known to mistakenly add an extra zero to the total of a cash prize and, on announcing a winner to the competition, they are unable to deliver the prize they promised. Clearly, this is an embarrassing situation. At best, the public will think the company is unprofessional for making such an error. At worst, they may consider the company dishonest and untrustworthy for not following through with a promise. The latter of these reactions is likely to cause more lasting damage to the company’s reputation, but the former will not help it either.
The hack, as Sniderman says, is arguably the most dangerous kind of social media PR slip, but is also the most easily rectified. The company can simply explain to readers and followers that their account was hacked and that they apologise for any offence or inconvenience caused. However, while this response is likely to fix public relations in some ways, people may lose faith in a company who allow themselves to be so easily hacked. Security is clearly not as tight as it should be and, depending on the type of organisation, the public may not trust them with their own personal details if they are open to hackers.
There are many mistakes that can be made. Sniderman quotes Winston Bao Lord: “I think you can’t play out every scenario because you just don’t know, but you can plan out certain buckets to be prepared,” he says. “In every industry you can always identify potential PR disasters” (Sniderman, 2011).
Sniderman claims that luckily, the approaches for coping with all of these mistakes are fairly similar. He says that being quick, honest and having a sense of humour about the matter is the best way forwards. Waiting for a few hours to correct a mistake could prove far more damaging than dealing with it immediately. This certainly seems to make sense, especially in the fast moving pace of social media.
Sniderman lists examples of social media disasters which have been corrected via a quick response and a sense of humour. Such examples, such as the Red Cross mistake, have clearly been handled well. However, there are times when a sense of humour would be unsuitable. If, for example, an individual or company had posted an inappropriate joke following a world event such as the earthquake in japan, countering this with another joke is likely to do even more damage. The matter is far too serious to be rectified with humour, but this situation is not covered in depth in this article.
This article is gripping, light-hearted and entirely relevant to these times when social media is at its peak. Almost everyone in the western world either uses social media or knows many people who do and, therefore, the subject of social media PR disasters is one that most people can relate to. Generally, Sniderman covers the topic fully and without pretention. However, he misses the more serious side of the subject, such as when real offence is caused to individuals or groups as a result of a social media PR disaster.
