Why Silence is Not Necessarily Golden
Column Topic:
Legal While it is not entirely clear what long-term role social media will play for businesses, it is clear that ignoring customer complaints and bad publicity on social media is playing fast and loose with your company’s reputation. Highlighted below are a few business and legal issues to keep in mind when faced with negative posts on social media.
Understanding the Risks
Unflattering news and customer complaints about a company on social media can spread very rapidly. Traditionally, customer complaints were between only the customer and the company. Now, when an individual posts something negative on social media about a company, it might be read by thousands of people within minutes. Negative stories with pictures or video spread even faster because the 24-hour news cycle is more likely to pick up such a story.
In one unfortunate incident, an employee in a Domino’s Pizza franchise filmed fellow employees purposely tainting food and posted the videos online. Numerous web sites and television news shows picked up the videos and reported on them, creating a firestorm of bad coverage for the brand.
Limited Legal Options
As frustrating as it may be, social media sites have no obligation to remove negative comments or unflattering postings about a company, even if they are untrue. Under the Communications Decency Act, social media sites likely have immunity from third party defamation claims for content posted by users and have no obligation to remove posts on the grounds that they are untrue. This means that for defamatory statements, companies must contact or sue individual posters themselves to obtain removal of their posts. In some instances, creative leveraging of intellectual property rights might provide an easier resolution.
The Communications Decency Act does not shield web site operators from copyright infringement liability and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act only provides a safe harbor from liability if certain procedures are followed to respond to take-down requests. In the Domino’s example, the company did not own the copyrights in the videos, but the former employee who filmed the videos did and demanded the web sites remove the videos, likely once it became clear that she was facing criminal charges for food tampering.
Plan for the Unexpected
One good place to start planning how to deal with negative posts on social media is by implementing a social media policy for employees to educate them on the appropriate uses of social media and the penalties for violating the policy. Additionally, designate a social media coordinator to monitor sites for negative postings about your brand and respond quickly with accurate information. Domino’s used this tactic effectively when company executives obtained an email from the former employee who created the videos stating that the videos were a hoax and that the contaminated food was never served to customers. Domino’s immediately circulated the email to address customer concerns, created a Twitter account to address the comments and provided a video by its chief executive explaining the incident.
Another helpful tactic is for your social media coordinator to respond to customer complaints directly on social media sites as a customer service initiative. Numerous companies have found that by addressing customer complaints online, they can turn complaints into rave reviews.
Given the speed with which news travels on social media, responding rapidly to customer complaints and negative stories just might help you avoid serious damage to your brand.
2010-02-13 01:00:00 -0500
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