Sigh. It’s obligatory for an agency to talk about Facebook and how it relates to marketing these days, no? So here’s our take. But, you might be surprised by what we think is most important about the Facebook controversy
Do you REALLY need Facebook?
At Spark Rocket Marketing, we get calls every day from B2B companies saying “we need a social media plan” and “how much advertising should we do on Facebook?
And our reply is “why do you think you need to be on Facebook?” The answer is typically “because I need a strong social media presence.” And while it is true you may need a strong targeted social media presence, Facebook may not be germane to that. Unless you are a business-to-consumer company, the chances of converting a Facebook presence to sales via their advertising channels or even a page with thousands of likes and followers is marginal. (There is one B2B Facebook strategy we recommend. We’ll talk about that another day.)
But that’s not really what has inspired this post. We can all learn from the Facebook controversy. But the lesson has nothing to do with the “Facebook data management and how what it did will affect its advertisers” foray.
The lesson we can learn from Facebook is…
Have a crisis management plan (Facebook apparently doesn’t)
The news media is crucifying Facebook because Mark Zuckerberg has all the appearance of someone with something to hide — because he is hiding. And, for that matter, where is the elder stateswoman of the company — Sheryl Sandberg? She is supposed to be the level-headed mom to Facebook’s impetuous man-child. But she is nowhere to be found.
And it makes no sense for a company as mature as Facebook to not have a crisis management plan. Can it be possible that no one anticipated this fallout? They knew they were selling aggregate data about their users. Add to that the past two years of kerfuffle surrounding foreign entities using the front-end of Facebook to skew its content and kidnap the way its algorithm shared high volumes of hoax-filled-content? Well, they had to know the chances were pretty high that a company would inappropriately use the back-end data they were selling.
And though we haven’t read Facebook’s terms and conditions, we’d lay a bet that they didn’t do anything legally wrong. You sign up for Facebook. You answer those quizzes that say “hey, we’re going to capture your info and your contacts.” Well, “user-of-free-software” beware.
But whether they are legally right or wrong isn’t the biggest issue that’s plaguing them right now.
It is clear that Facebook’s team had no crisis management plan for dealing with their own users, other social networks and traditional media when, not if, a crisis happened.
Have a crisis management plan before the crisis
Don’t be Facebook. We can’t state this strongly enough. The time to implement a crisis management plan is years before the crisis happens. And developing that plan is an exercise in worst-case scenario brainstorming and planning.
How do you do it? Here are a few tips:
- If you’re creating and releasing a new technology, brainstorm all of the links in the chain between your technology and its end users. You need to anticipate when even your best customer may start pointing fingers at you.
- Include your legal team, but don’t let them run the crisis. You have to make a choice as CEO, CTO or other executive of your company when to accept culpability or provide some measure of remediation before the words “lawsuit” are bandied about by the public. Quite frankly, the best crisis management plans typically leave both the legal teams and the PR teams a little disappointed.
- Don’t non-apologize. Ever. Any apology that says “We are sorry if people felt…” or “We regret that people took our intentions the wrong way…” are non-apologies. Don’t do it. Don’t let a lawyer make you do it. If you are barred from accepting culpability until you know more, then say something to the effect of: “We are genuinely disturbed by this problem and are working to get to the root of what happened, how it happened and how to prevent it happening again.” But no non-apologies!
- Have a strong single spokesperson as the face of your company and then make sure that every single person with any access to the media is on-message. That means being very clear with your employees how you plan to manage the crisis and have their input and buy-in.
- Educate the marketplace. For example, if you believe that you were clear in your service agreements that you’d be passing along aggregate data to third parties, then clearly explain that you never sold personal profile info, but rather the collective data on how many of your users identify as ultra-conservative or fans of soccer or Wayfair shoppers. Explain how, when used by companies with ethical practices, that data can be helpful to your users. Don’t deflect blame. Accept that this was a corporate practice and educate the market on why you do it. (We’re looking at you, Facebook).
- If you end up making a policy change as a result of the crisis, be prepared to say “Yes, we did that. We’re not going to do it any more because we have heard you, our customers, and are making a change to satisfy your needs.”
- Tell the truth. Tell the truth. Tell the truth. We don’t let our customers lie no matter how bad the crisis. It never, ever has an upside.
AND, MOST IMPORTANTLY…
Hire an objective firm to guide you and your spokespeople during this crisis. You’re not objective, you’re passionately protective of your brand, your products, your people. They won’t be too close to the problem.
Get planning and good luck!
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No F*cks Left Fridays are the “in your face” marketing posts where we take a surprising stand, throw “traditional marketing” ideas under the bus and vent about all things stupid in the practice of marketing (probably before we all head out for martinis — come join us!). We decided that if we are going to claim to be audacious in what we do for our clients, we have to be audacious ourselves. Or course, you may not agree with us — so we encourage respectful comments. Chime in!