How to avoid your business being ambushed on social media: Part 2
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Turning the tables on the Twitterati
That businesses are running scared of Twitter is a known known. The micro-blogging site is a great leveller. But it is also clear that most businesses do not know how to manage ideologically-informed and pseudonymised activists who want to force commercial organisations to take a politically-informed stance in their business operations.
So following on from Part 1 of my strategy here is my 3-stage plan for a defence against unwanted activism that any business can adopt. In essence it slows down the pace of interaction and moves the conflict from a battlefield where the business will lose, to an area where the activist can be neutralised successfully.
1. Move the discussion away from public Twitter
When an activist demands a response from a business that is outside what the business actually does, such as demanding an advertising boycott or disassociation from an (almost always Conservative) politician who has been seen using a business’s product or service, the social media professional (SMP) should try to get the discussion out of the public arena as rapidly as possible.
Twitter has a direct messaging facility to do this. The mutual benefit that the SMP should stress to the activist is that while Twitter has a 280-character limit (this has increased from 140 characters in the last few years and may still get higher), direct messaging in Twitter has no such limit. The SMP should state that an issue that the activist feels is so important deserves better attention with a response longer than just a single tweet.
2. Move the discussion away from Twitter completely
Unless the activist is proficient at text management in the Twitter interface, or copies and pastes text composed in a text editor, it is likely that the direct messaging will be a back-and-forth dialogue of small snippets of text similar in length to a tweet. After a few instances of this, the SMP should state that a serious query warrants a serious, but also considered, reply, something that simply cannot be performed instantly in social media. As such the SMP should request that the activist provides an email address on which they may be contacted. A commitment to contact within a timeframe should be made, perhaps 48 hours, and very strictly adhered to. At this stage the activist may refuse, at which point the SMP may, in sorrow, terminate the dialogue and thus neutralise the activist, stating that they have tried to do all they could to improve communication with the activist. But the activist may persist and comply.
The email sent to the activist must explain the business’s position. It would be reasonable to state that the aims and objectives of the business do not include forcing opinions onto other entities, whether they be organisations or individuals, or objecting if the business’s product is incorporated into a photo opportunity by a politician, unless this has been explicitly arranged. The composition of this email message is key. It should respect that the activist has concerns, but not necessarily agree with them.
The business should articulate their mission statement, which should really focus on the delivery of quality goods or services in a legal and competitive manner. If the statement does not do this and instead contains vague feel-good notions, the business has a problem; the wording of the statement should be changed. The business should maintain neutrality on most ideological issues, as the focus of the business is the business. The tone should be respectful, and perhaps sympathetic with the concern, but state that the business cannot and will not take a stance.
The business should be mindful that any email sent to the activist will be screen captured and posted back to Twitter either completely or selectively to social media, perhaps with a hostile comment. The business should not rise to the challenge of going back to social media, as this is exactly what the activist wants. If the content of the email is reasonable, then the only people who will be hostile to the business would be those who would just have been searching for a reason to be hostile anyway. Reasonable people will see that the business is trying to be reasonable. The activist will have been neutralised. Businesses that try to please all the people all the time end up causing more commercial damage to themselves with the wider, non-activist public.
3. Move the discussion completely off the internet
The actual objective of the SMP is not to calm, satisfy, or convince the activist, but to avoid alienating previously disinterested onlookers, causing reputational and commercial harm of the kind the Co-op did to itself, with its hastily-implemented and rapidly-reversed advertising boycott of the Spectator. The very best way to avoid alienating onlookers is to prevent onlooking, which is what the SMP’s phased relocation of the discussion with the activist has all been about.
The activist may reply to the email with a detailed response of their own. And this is where the next, and winning stage, of the plan may be employed.
The business should ask, in an email, for the activist’s name and address, so they may write them an official letter.
It is reasonable to assume that the activist, in their Twitter handle and email address, will have at no time at this stage provided their name, hiding instead behind a pseudonym. This is unfair on the business, as while the name and address of the business will be known, it has been subjected to what could have been a quite hostile interrogation from a hidden source. It is even possible that participants in any online pile-on may all be the same person using different pseudonymised accounts.
This is the most sensitive part of the engagement, and should be handled with care – if the activist provides a name and address, then there will be data protection issues involved. Care should also be taken to try to verify the name and address provided. The tone of the letter should be very similar to the email: assertive, polite, respectful, and also non-confrontational. It is at the point of asking for identification that the activist may be deterred from further engagement, but neutralising the activist is the whole objective for the business.
Of course, the activist will be on the back foot here, and may object to identifying themselves. But it has to be remembered that the objective is not to avoid alienating the activist. The activist has already been alienated. In fact, it is likely the activist was always looking for an excuse to attack the business, or a party with whom the business is dealing, and finally managed to find one. Instead, the objective is to avoid alienating the general public.
The business should explain that it is usual for people to identify themselves when they express a concern or make a complaint. The business may already have an online complaints or comments process where people are happy to identify themselves, something the pseudonymised activist has bypassed by going straight to Twitter. On this basis, the business can state that is perfectly reasonable when communicating to a concerned individual to know who they are, also pointing out that the people fronting numerous organisations who campaign about public concerns are always happy to identify themselves, and that there is no real reason for the activist to hide behind a made-up name.
The objective here is not to defeat, but to isolate and then neutralise the activist, especially if they are operating under a pseudonym. Making the activist’s use of a pseudonym count against them is a bonus. Businesses should not feel threatened by people who, instead of standing up to be counted, choose to hide behind a mask. Such vigilantism should be left to comic books or fantasy films and has no place disrupting organisations dedicated to the creation of wealth and the provision of public benefit.
While this is only a skeleton strategy, it is up to the SMP in a business to skilfully flesh the bare bones out, according to the business’s policies. But at the very least, any SMP will find in my article the basics on which to build. All they will need to provide for themselves is a spine.
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