Published June 14, 2011

Over the past few years, “social media,” in all its forms (Facebook, Twitter and the like), has really taken off. As a leader of a communications firm, we’ve created jobs and hired people that I couldn’t have begun to imagine 10 years ago … such is the growth curve of “social media.”

Bruce D. Murdy is president of Rawle Murdy Associates Inc.

One of the basic tenets of social media for a marketer is that you need to “let go” of thinking you control and own your brand exclusively. That is, our old fashioned notions of one-way conversation need to evolve. For example, in a “traditional” advertisement-whether it is a radio commercial or a newspaper ad -- the communication is one way. The advertiser has full control of the message, telling prospects exactly what the advertiser wants them to know. Not so, of course, with social media, where consumers have much more to say, and are often equally at the table with what an advertiser has to say.

We’ve seen this phenomenon first and most profoundly affect communications in the travel/tourism arena, where as much as we may want to control the brand, sites like TripAdvisor have a wealth of information, good and bad, at your fingertips.

Recently, I was booking a vacation at a resort destination, and one of the top-rated hotels was instantly knocked off my finalist list because of a reviewer reference to the state of his room’s cleanliness and possible health risks tied to staying at that hotel. Game over, no matter how much they spend on advertising. Hopefully, the review that sited the issues was real, as I changed my decision because of what I read. I was also surprised to see that the resort did nothing to mitigate or respond to this complaint … they just let me, and hundreds of others like me, believe they had this problem. Ugh!

Obviously, without clearly defined rules of the road, your brand can be sabotaged by review sites and the ability to Google virtually anything. Sometimes there are legitimate complaints, and a social media-savvy marketer will hop right on any complaint or negative comment, so as to minimize its long-term effect.

However democratic this system might be, it’s not truly the dialogue that it was intended to be. People are free to post opinions, many of which are not in fact vetted by anyone other than an occasional social media peer that challenges them, or the wide-awake marketer that heads it off quickly. So, social media can be a place to voice opinions, but not a true dialogue.

David Bohm, a 20^th century quantum physicist who later became well known for his theories on dialogue, suggests that with dialogue, participants “suspend their beliefs, opinions, impulses, and judgments while speaking together in an effort to free ourselves of destructive misinformation.” Well, the Internet is hardly a place where Bohmian dialogue takes place, is it? And while not all misinformation is destructive, it does send us off on some curves and dead ends.

For example, we had a client that had a disgruntled ex-employee try to attack the long-standing and very positive image of the company. He was mad, and potentially dangerous. While you can lock the doors of your office, and while reliable and trustworthy media most often pay no attention to people like this, the Internet has no such filter. And no “dialogue” exists on Facebook, Twitter or personal Web pages to stop someone with an ill-conceived grudge from taking it out on you.

So, what can a marketer do? First and foremost, recognize that the Internet is not a great forum for a true “dialogue.” While it allows for more back and forth, there are agendas on both sides. Most of the time, those agendas are benign, generally positive in nature, and of course in the case of marketers, there is a commercial purpose.

When those criteria are upset by someone with a destructive agenda, it’s time to take action. First, understand their problems-if they are simple, solve them and quiet things down. If it’s more than a simple issue or misunderstanding, get the discussion off-line as soon as possible, and resolve it to mutual satisfaction outside the public sphere of the Internet. Online reputation management is something we will all face, and planning for it beforehand will serve everyone better.

The Internet has granted freedom of expression like never before. With freedom comes responsibility. As responsible marketers, we need to recognize that not everyone see it the same way. So be prepared, and get in the conversation!

Bruce D. Murdy is president of Rawle Murdy Associates Inc., a Charleston-based marketing, advertising and public relations firm. E-mail him at bmurdy@rawlemurdy.com.