It was really just a matter of time before American business would discover that social media, long touted as a way to keep friends in touch, would show its unsocial side.  Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff’s recent book, Groundswell, provided a clear warning signal.  They point out that in any social media situation, 18 percent of the participants are creative and contributory while 25 percent are critical (ergo there will be more critics than contributors).  The potential of social media to be a double-edged sword was further established by recent research showing that Americans are spending millions of work hours as well as significant segments of their personal time on the Internet engaged in the various facets of social media, from Facebook to MySpace, LinkedIn to Twitter, and from YouTube to the whole Blogosphere.

Over the past few months, the full potential and the horrors (depending upon one’s perspective) have become clearer.  The message of these events to every real estate brokerage or organization is clear: be prepared for your organization to become entwined in a fierce battle and understand how your Twitter or Facebook account can become a major liability.

The two latest examples of this phenomenon surfaced last month.  In the first, Amazon.com was buried in a “Twitterstorm” when it was discovered that thousands of its titles dealing with gay and lesbian subjects had accidentally been tagged as “adult material,” thus removing them from the normal distribution process.

In the second incident, the public relations fortunes of the Domino’s Pizza organization took a serious tumble when two of their employees posted a video on YouTube demonstrating a disgusting scenario on how not to prepare a sandwich for public consumption.

These events followed closely on the heels of another widely distributed video showing Burger King employees bathing in the dishwashing sink.

In preparing this piece we were unable to identify any real estate brokerages or related organizations that have had a problem.  However, with thousands of brokerages, tens of thousands of agents and millions of real estate consumers becoming increasingly active on the Internet, it is obviously just a matter of time.

Each of the events mentioned above had impacted and activated responses from millions of people before the companies involved became aware of a problem or had an opportunity to take effective action.  Therein lies one of the challenges for which the traditional public relations system is unprepared.  Like so many other Internet related situations, nothing in the past has prepared most businesses or organizations to deal with the 24/7, 365-day, highly viral Internet environment.

Obviously the first issue to come to mind is how to prevent such incidents altogether without stifling the very nature of the mass-participation social media model.  Given the fact that virtually any individual can unleash an attack on virtually any corporation, company, organization, entity or other person without notice or provocation prevention appears to be a distant remedy.

Preparedness is a step that every brokerage or organization should undertake immediately.  There are five steps to complete this exercise.

• Identify and train your Internet Crisis Response Team (ICRT).  The successful team will include both internal and external players.   Individuals with specialized knowledge relating to social media issues as well as your legal counsel.
• Based upon your unique community, determine what elements of social media are most likely to be used to generate your own disaster.  By way of example, Twitter was the medium of choice for the Amazon.com event and YouTube provided the “weapons system” for the Domino’s crisis.
• Conduct a visioning exercise to identify the most likely crisis scenarios that might befall your organizations and have your ICRT group use the experience gained from this exercise to create specific crisis response plans.
• Be sure that your organization is tracking the various social media channels so that you can buy as much time as possible through an early warning that something is happening with respect to your name and reputation.  Google Alert is probably the simplest and most immediate remedy for monitoring, although there are others.
• Be prepared to execute your crisis response plan ASAP— certainly within 24 hours.  An immediate response can halt a crisis.  Anything over 24 hours is a recipe for a disaster.

Responsiveness appears to be the next most immediate and appropriate exercise.  When the moment arrives, be prepared to respond in a quick and positive fashion through one the following eight tactics:

• Remember that, at least initially, the facts are probably not going to be at issue here.  In real life, more players are caught conspiring to hide the act than actually commit it.  The immediate assault of the social media critics will be on the credibility of your organization’s response rather than the viability of the actual circumstances that led to the crisis.   Your first response to the situation will ultimately seal your fate with the Internet group.
• Transparency and integrity are the next components.  Don’t talk in circles or through lawyers and other surrogates.  Have the CEO of the company speak directly in its defense.  Do not talk in circles and do not try to spin your way out of the situation.  Remember that this aspect of social media was developed to respond to the type of double-talk and hype that was common over the past 25 years.  This is where you will demonstrate that you are one of the “new” and “transparent” organizations with nothing to hide.  Do not be afraid to say you don’t know what happened.
• As quickly as possible, figure out who is spearheading the criticism and where their comments might lead.  Are they actually customers or general critics?  Is this an exercise in criticism or are these folks really angry?  As in any crisis, your response must be proportional to the threat.
• While it is okay to say you don’t know what caused the problem even if there is one, avoid at all cost using lawyer inspired “clever” responses that assume those in play don’t get it.  Remember, this is all about being credible.  While this situation may seem analogous to a media environment it isn’t.  Both the rules and the target outcomes are different.  The social media world has more resources and perseverance than a media reporter who has other fish to fry.
• Do not switch media to make your response.  If the problem came through your Facebook page, then fight the battle there.  Switching to a press release in the mainstream will appear to be evasive and not credible.
• Do not put forth a defensive, disbelieving or superior attitude. Chances are that some manner of mistake was made and you must demonstrate a willingness to learn from the mistake and do everything possible to make sure it doesn’t happen again.  Demonstrate that you have learned from the event. Remember our mother’s advice when she taught us never to be sorry to say we are sorry.
• Invest in customer relationships now.  Remember that today’s consumer is very interested in having a relationship with both you and your agent.  Moreover, they are interested in the benefits of these relationships.
• And finally, come up with solutions that will both prevent the problem from reoccurring, but at the same time reflect how your company will demonstrate its consumer-centric status moving forward.

The lesson here for real estate professionals and organizational administrators is that you cannot ignore those within the social media environment who are committed to being accomplished critics. In fact, they can provide critical early warnings with respect to the ongoing viability of your service package.  However, in the same vein, do not expect to satisfy this group. Like a literary critic who trashes a book you recommended to all of your friends, a movie critic who pans your favorite comedy, or a restaurant critic who expressed disgust at the dessert you can’t do without, these critics must be addressed quickly and appropriately.  However, that doesn’t make them right, nor does it suggest that your firm is suffering from some sort of ethical or moral shortcoming. In the social media world, the art of criticism is just that.  It may or may not be correct, but it must be met head-on.

Jeremy Conaway is a keynote speaker, conference facilitator, and consultant to the Real Estate industry. He is President of RECON Intelligence Services, and can be reached at 231.938.7326, www.reconis.com or jeremy.conaway@reconis.com.

Copyright 2009, Jeremy Conaway. All rights reserved.