Bad Buzz - Aye carumba ... my kid's report card was awful!

In the search for "How to respond to bad social media buzz", I found a number of comparisons to responding to other social circumstances. If you consider a "social circumstance" an open conversation between people, and if it involves bad buzz then the circumstances are "just right".

Similar bad social media buzz situations may include:

• Responding to a bad report card,
• Handling a heckler, and
• Handling personal criticism in an evaluation.

Today I'll start with the "bad report card" scenario, and compare that back to the guidelines for how to respond to bad social media buzz. Over the next couple of days I'll also look at the heckler and the evaluation.

Responding to a bad report card
I'm a happy guy ... I haven't had this situation with my kids yet. Looking around on Google I found three good sites right away:

• Families.com, Nicki Bradley,
• SelfGrowth.com, Connie Hammer, and
• TheCuteKid.com, by Teresa.

To paraphrase the three articles, here's what they say to do when you do run into the bad report card:

1. Keep your response in check. Your first reactions to the report card - whether good or bad will have a major impact. If you see a bad grade(s), take time to respond. "Count to 10", even up to a full 24 hours! Think about your goal and your child's needs and feelings.
   
2. Reevaluate your expectations. Maybe your child is actually fulfilling his potential with the grade he got. Maybe you know that there are reasons that your child got that grade (e.g. maybe you aren't helping him wiht his homework). Consider your child's natural strengths and weaknesses and not just your desired strengths and weaknesses before forming expectations.
   
3. Think about the things that matter most to you and your child. Likely that is learning and progress, and not the ugly grade on the paper. Concentrate on the learning process and ask questions, like "What did you learn (in science, math, art. etc.) this term? What did you enjoy? What was the easiest thing? What was the hardest thing? Why do you think you got this grade? What do you think you could have changed or done differently? What do you want to work on next time?"
4. Have a discussion about the issues. Check your "Lecturer" hat at the door, and engage your child in a conversation. Ask, listen, chat, discuss. Again - more open-ended questions like: "Are you having problems with the subject matter? How do you get along with your teacher? How do you get along with your classmates? What are your tests like? How do you think you could do better at them?" Listen carefully to see if you can understand the problem, and then seek a solution together.
5. Meet with the teacher - ideally in person, and ideally with your child along for the conversation. Stay objective in this conversation, and keep your emotions in check. Discuss what the teacher views as the problem and compare this with what your child views as the problem. Ensure you have a meeting of the minds on the reasons for the bad grades. You might even ask the teacher to provide you with updates on how your child is doing in order to help everyone evaluate progress and avoid future surprises.
6. Solve the problem. Set a plan, based on your child's input, his teacher's input, and your input. Ensure your child is doing the work and homework he is supposed to do (and help him schedule & do it), adjust your expectations, hire a tutor or get extra help from the teacher. Also, get feedback regularly from your child and from his teacher.
   
7. Discuss and consider natural or logical consequences. The natural consequence of not having good grades is ... bad grades. While a parent may be tempted to remove important things from a child's life - such as activities, toys, and so forth in order to "punish" the child, or "encourage him" to work harder, these consequences are not directly tied to bad grades. The best natural consequence is likely to set aside time each day where your child site down and do & review their homework each night. Sometimes this may mean cutting back on activities and play time.
   
8. "Start Anew". Wipe the slate clean, with your new expectations and goals - and more importantly your child's goals. Focus on your child's positive personality traits that you know will carry them well into the future. Boost your child's confidence by telling them that they can do it and then help them achieve it.
   

In comparison to the guidelines for responding to bad social media buzz:

• Be careful - That's the "Count to 10" step.
  
• Contest fraudulent / wrong comments - That's part of the "Have a conversation" step. You may need to ask some questions in order to contest an inaccurate comment.
  
• Write a response - Again, part of the conversation. Ask for more details if you need them, and even ask that the blogger contact your customer service department directly (you probably don't want to have a heated conversation in the open public domain of the internet, and you probably also don't want to give out your own contact information).
  
• Fix the problem & upload a proof (like a picture) to prove the fix - That's the step related to "Solve the Problem".
  
• Report findings back into the company - These are the "natural consequences". When you report back into the company, people get to hear real-life stories about your customer's experiences, and the fix that makes everyone happier. This will reinforce the fix
• Participation becomes content - This correlates with your first reaction to the report card. Becoming a tempest in a teapot will only sour your child's image of you. Writing a bad blog response will sour your brand.
  
• Bring in a professional - This is parallel to hiring a tutor to help you.

So, there we go, the model for dealing with a bad report card is similar to the model for dealing with bad social media buzz.

Responding to Buzz

(I unintentionally took a week off. But, now I'm back.)

I didn't know I was doing it, but some time ago I did an experiment in responding to buzz (both good and bad) in social media - including blogs and reviews. At the time, I drew up a list of guidelines to use when responding. The experience was fun, and the results were very positive.

As part of my "series" on responding to buzz, I did some poking around to update my list of guidelines. My research took me through a wide variety of business sites, consultants, educational, and miscellaneous sites.

To summarize my findings ... Responding to social media buzz requires an honest, polite, actionable and timely approach.

In general ... you must:

• Sell the idea ... Company culture will be tested - Determining that you are going to start responding to social media may test the culture of your company. Are the executives willing to let you respond to social media? Ensure you understand what you are setting out to do, and find a great way to sell that it needs to be done.
  
• Join the conversation - Get involved with social media. Search out good and back feedback about your company.
  
• Be responsive - Respond. Participate. Do something.
  
• Be honest - Make sure you tell the truth in your responses. If you say you are going to do something to research and follow-up on the post ... DO IT.
  
• Be timely - Find and respond to blogs and reviews quickly.
  
• Be human - Don't respond with legalese, process documents, and gobbledygook. Respond as if you are part of a conversation.
  
• Acknowledge Consumer’s experience - If the consumer says something happened. Believe it. Good, bad, or otherwise. Let the consumer know you believe it.
  
• Do not offer a bribe (e.g. a gift certificate for their post) - Keep things open and honest. You must not "pay" for a post either in advance or afterwards, regardless of it being good, bad, or otherwise.
  
• Give Social Media care and feeding - Social Media isn't something you should step into once and back away from. You have to get into and stay in it. That means that once you determine how you will respond to good and bad social media, you will need to set aside time on a regular basis to participate in Social Media. You may even need to have staff in place to keep up with it.
  

When dealing with positive feedback, the additional guidelines are pretty short and sweet ...

• Thank the blogger for the positive feedback - Say thanks. Keep it short. Reference your website with an actual link, and ideally deep-link to a page on your site that is relevant to the blogger's post.
  
• Remember that the blog or review belongs to the blogger - The blog isn't yours. Don't resort to using it as your advertising forum. Say thanks, reference your site, and get off the blog.
  

Now, for the tough stuff. Dealing with bad reviews in social media provides you with a make or break opportunity to build many new brand champions, or create many instant enemies. Good luck to you. Here's a short list of guidelines.

• Be careful - Be really careful about what you are wading into when you start firing responses out onto the internet. Escalation and communication expands rapidly online. Especially when your response ends up making you look stupid.
  
• Contest fraudulent / wrong comments ... If you have proof of inaccuracy - I heard of a hotel chain who had their pool lambasted on TripAdivsor.com, with a picture of a hotel pool full of slime. This was a surprise for the hotel chain, since they didn't have a hotel pool at that destination. So they were able to easily contest the review, and TripAdvisor removed it.
  
• Write a response - Let the blogger know that they've been heard. Acknowledge their feelings. Let the blogger know what action you are going to take (and really take it).
  
• Fix the problem & upload a proof (like a picture) to prove the fix - Imagine that it was really your hotel whose pool caused a wave for a customer. Your response should be to explain the problem, explain what the fix is, and describe that it's all better now (e.g. Our most humble apology ... Our pool filter was broken ... We fixed it as soon as we got the new part ... It looks great now and the water is crystal clear.)
  
• Report findings back into the company - Don't stop at your discussion with the blogger. Ensure you have the ear of your company through a well-placed executive who can help to take action in order to eliminate problems in the future.
• Participation becomes content - Remember, that whatever you write becomes part of the fabric of the web. It will start to show up in searches all over the place. You want to be sure that your content reflects your brand for the long-term.
  
• Bring in a professional - If responding makes you uncomfortable, or if the bad review is a really hot topic, then you should bring in someone who can handle it for you. Google it, and you can find lots of people who can help like Hill & Knowlton.
  

Finally, one thing you can be sure of is that someone on your Executive will demand metrics. Social Media Metrics are very hard to produce. Even if you can find some that satisfy a VP or an EVP at a point in time, that snapshot will likely not demonstrate full benefits of Social Media. On top of that, at the point where you manage to alleviate negative buzz with great, honest, polite, actionable and timely responses, the metrics won't ever reflect this.

Go and be social!

By the way, in the next few days I'll give you some hints on how to find social media buzz. Check back often ;^)

Responding to Bad Buzz

Following along on my train of thought about "Buzz", and considering the United Airlines fiasco that Sons of Maxwell have unleashed, today I want to start thinking about what to do when you find you are facing "bad buzz". That is to say, if your product or service breaks, you don't recover well, and a customer discovers that your story isn't true ... then they tell the world about it through a blog, YouTube, or any of the other plethora of internet based tools at their beck and call ... WHAT SHOULD YOU DO???

Over the next several days I'm going to bring together posts from diverse subjects about "responding" - from things like responding to your child's bad report card, to responding to a bad review of your writing. Along side those, I'll bring in blogs from Seth Godin and others. By the end, I hope to be able to publish a good set of guidelines about "How to respond to bad buzz online"

Buzzing about "Free Prize Inside"

Cover of Free Prize Inside

More vacation reading ... and more buzzing.

I read Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin over my vacation as well. It was very, very, very good. The premise is that to be successful you need to build a product or service that people will talk about, and the only way to do that is to live on the "edge". You have to design something that is so far from normal that it is exciting.

My copy is now full of highlighting and I've gone back through it twice. I'm going back through it again for sure!

Great book, and I'm "buzzing"about it.

Buzzing about "All Marketers are Liars"

Image via Wikipedia

While on vacation I read Seth Godin's All Marketers Are Liars. Now I'm going to
"buzz"about it.

The premise of the book is that Marketers must be in the business of telling honest stories about their products and services that their community will believe, embrace, and spread. In each separate case a marketer's community is a group of people who share a common worldview, perspective, or set of beliefs. If the community finds the marketer's story to be true then they will spread it amongst themselves and lead the marketer to be more successful.

There's a whole lot more to it, and Seth definitely does a great job of describing this theory. As a matter of fact, it seems to be a good companion to The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing by Emanuel Rosen.

In any event - I'm part of the community that shares the worldview that a Marketers role is to tell a great story.

Some buzz about a Lu'au

Image by SparkyLeigh via Flickr

Still more "buzz" today from my vacation to Maui. (I am still enjoying "United Breaks Guitars")

Today I want to recommend a Lu'au. Yesterday I blogged about trying to find a good snorkeling trip in South Maui. We had the same challenge in booking a Lu'au. Well - we settled on the Drums of Makena Sunset Luau" at the Maui Prince Hotel. We booked it through Snorkel Bob's.

The Drums of Makena was a smaller Lu'au than others we've been to previously. But, this made it a more intimate and enjoyable evening. The food was great. The entertainment was great. Best of all, our kids didn't want to go home at the end of the evening.

There we go ... more buzz being sent through the Internet to you.

"United Breaks Guitars" nears 2.5 MILLION views

Sons of Maxwell via last.fm

Power to the people. Buzzing about the negative impact of a business' actions is proving to be very powerful against United Airline's bad customer service and the experience that Sons of Maxwell experienced. Tonight, about a week after Sons of Maxwell launched their ballad "United Breaks Guitars", their video is poised to break 2.5 million views.

Might as well watch it again!

More Buzz and Holiday Recommendations

Image by J. Stephen Conn via Flickr

I'm still full of "buzz". However, as opposed to my buzz yesterday about "United Breaks Guitars", today I'm buzzing about some good times I had on my holiday to Maui.

My wife and I wanted to take our two young kids out snorkelling, but couldn't find a short "cruise"
to take. Then, when we were at a Lu'au my wife found a short snorkelling tour that leaves from the Maui Prince Hotel. Rather than a 5 hour excursion, the "Molikini Express" is a 15 minute boat ride over to Molikini. After a good long snorkel there, they bring you on a short 10 minute boat ride back over to "turtle town". From there you could pretty much swim back to the shore (except that all your stuff is still on the boat). so, from there, you jump back on the big catamaran and it is a simple 5 minute ride back to the beach. My kids had a great time - snorkling with the fish and the turtles, eating, and not getting sea sick.

The Molikini Express features a big catamaran (the Kai Kanani), and a great (friendly, helpful, and funny) staff. You can book them at 808-879-7218 or www.KaiKanani.com.

Buzzing more about "United Breaks Guitars"

Image via CrunchBase

Yesterday when I first heard about this story, the "United Breaks Guitars" video had been watched nearly 200,000 times. Sons of Maxwell had only published the video to YouTube two days earlier. Tonight there around 750,000 views!

Also - there are lots of comments like:

• Like a SPinal Tap amp, your revenge goes up to 11. Amazing job sir - hats off to Sons of Maxwell. It is exactly this kind of systemic anti-customer culture that makes people dislike companies like United. Fire the baggage handlers and make every United employee view this video. Oh, and if they repeat their interest in this video for training purposes...SELL IT it them. Say, free airfare for life and first class seat for your guitar. Brilliant vid!!!!!
  
• damn! I could write a full Broadway musical and it still wouldn't cover all the crap I've taken from Air Canada over the years!
  
• One of the best You Tube videos ever. Beautiful way to get back at the impersonal airline industry in general. United and the others badly need to get their act together and start delivering good customer service again.

(There are a lot of inflammatory and unnecessary comments as well - these are a few good ones that apply to United Airlines, and the airline industry in general.)

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• Halifax band uses viral video to fight United Airlines (ctv.ca)
• Halifax man turns broken guitar into YouTube hit (thestar.com)
• United Breaks Guitars (neatorama.com)
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• United Breaks Guitars (videocafe.crooksandliars.com)
• United Airlines Breaks Guitars (queercents.com)
• Broken guitar song gets airline's attention (cbc.ca)
• Musician finds success with "YouTube justice" video (canada.com)
• "United Breaks Guitars," by Sons of Maxwell, whose guitars were broken by (you guessed it) United (gadling.com)
• In A Connected World, Where Everyone Has A Voice, Customers Win (techdirt.com)
• Using YouTube to Crash UA's reputation (redcouch.typepad.com)
• Brunch n Brains: United Breaks Guitars (converstations.com)

Buzz Works

I'm fresh back from holidays. I have just finished reading a couple of great books, and am also about half-way through "The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing" by Emanuel Rosen. It is a good book, and I'll spend the next couple of days "buzzing" about a few experiences I had on my vacation.

To start with, I wanted to buzz about United Airlines. Maybe this is an "anti-buzz". It is amusing and ever so telling about their overall way of doing business. It also shows the power of a consumer with a good story in the internet age.

For some background, check out CBC.ca's coverage of the story - United Breaks Guitars. Then you might want to read more from Dave Carroll's own story on his own blog. Finally, you can't miss the actual protest song.