Social Media Monitoring: A Risk Management Strategy

Below is an excerpt from a hilarious but very damaging letter sent to Richard Branson from a somewhat disgruntled Virgin Airlines passenger:

Dear Mr Branson,

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008,

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.
Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at thehands of your corporation.

Look at this Richard. Just look at it: [see image 1, above].
I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

(To read the letter is it's full glory please click here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/4344890/Virgin-the-worlds-best-passenger-complaint-letter.html)

Unsurprisingly this letter has now gone viral and has been a visitor to many an inbox around the world.

Also unsurprisingly this has now turned into a PR disaster for Virgin Airlines.

To add insult to injury this letter follows on from the recent news story that Virgin America has sent a threatening letter to Adrants (blog) because of an ad (made by someone else) that they posted.

Although Adrants has pulled the ad, the VX lawsuit is still a real threat. The ad shows the US Airways plane floating in the Hudson and has a small "fly " at the bottom in an apparent parody.

Virgin isn't having a very good week.

Having seen these stories this week i couldn't help thinking that Social Media Monitoring may have helped dilute these situations, not stop them altogether, but it could have given Virgin a heads-up to get a response or intervention in place alot sooner.

Social media monitoring tools such as Buzz Numbers, Trucast/SEER & Nielsen Buzzmetrics are readily available in the marketplace and specialise in monitoring the social web.

They look at everything from the standard journo-driven news stories on SMH online to Facebook commentary, blogs, forums & standard websites.

The data can start off as an overview just rating positive or negative sentiment towards a brand and the general industry such as 'how are people feeling about their finances in the current economic environment and what really matters to them'.

But Advertisers also have the ability to drill down into minutely detailed data such as:

• Conversation topics



• Exact wording & phrases used



• Where are these conversations taking place



• Who is talking about them



• Segment enthusiasts into groups such as influencers, connectors, authoritarians & advocates



• Benchmarking against Competitors



• Volume & Velocity of a topic

The list goes on.....

This kind of data is not only good to have.....it's ESSENTIAL!

Clients are knocking down doors at the moment crying "we want to do a social media campaign!"

When asked why the answer i get time and time again is either "because it's the IN thing" or "because everyone else is doing it".

My response is usually to take them through my guide on 'How to fail at Social Media in 5 easy steps' which consists of the following:

1. Buy into the hype
2. Get an agency to throw together a quick activation strategy
3. Jump in
4. Try to control the conversation
5. Get burned

If this doesn't persuade them otherwise i bring out the big guns and show them the blog headlines & bad PR of our favourite social media try-hard NAB - that usually does the trick.

Having diffused a potentially difficult situation my recommendation is Social Media Monitoring.

"It's about conversations, and the best communicators start as they best listeners." (Brian Solis, Social Media Manifesto)

Before Advertisers go barging into the social webspace i think it's important to understand where they currently stand in the space and what people think about them already.

These conversations should then be filtering into & influencing every comms plan we put together because it's about time that we stopped broadcasting & started understanding what it is people want and what matters to them.

Once we have this data then we are better placed to plan & execute effective advertising.

So back to the beginning and Virgin Airlines.....

If Virgin had utilised social media monitoring then i theorise that they could have caught these issues earlier and responded in such a way as to this turn bad PR into a positive spin...

The Letter: Virgin could have traced back to the key influential parties that had first seeded the viral. Once they had found these people it may have been beneficial to approach them to offer them a free flight, ask them to help contribute to their inflight menu, invited them to meet Richard Branson....i don't know the list is endless and i don't work on Virgin so these ideas are hardly thought out.....but you get my point.

The Ad Parody: Had they listened to the conversation surrounding the Hudson River crash then they would have understood peoples nervous disposition towards flying and could have put an ad out early stressing the safety of the Virgin Aircrafts.....

Ultimately Social Media Monitoring will become a neccessity to any good advertiser....