We recently had a similar issue with a client that I won’t name, even in age of transparency as I didnt’ask if OK, but they got a little bit of negative buzz over a comment from the CEO in the press. We could have overreacted, flipcamming the CEO and responding that way. Instead, we just engage the detractors ourselves, explained the company’s intent, policy and support of its customers, and all was fine.

How you respond should be congruous with the level of discussion and buzz, but you still may want to respond. The issue with Motrin was that it got picked up by mainstream press pretty fast. Motrin could have slammed the door shut on that with some simple engagement with individuals. It’s a few minutes of time. Yes?

We (at crowdSPRING) spent a lot of time ealrier this year talking about this issue in the context of the continuous debate about spec work and our business model – and made adjustments to the way we reacted. Some smart people (among them, Micah Baldwin), gave me some good advice that fundamentally changed the way I engaged (and has helped me to avoid overreacting).

I’d love to see a model that helps with the decision making. But it seems, at least in most contexts, that far too many variables are at issue – models couldn’t possibly begin to take all into account correctly.
Ross Kimbarovsky´s last blog ..Twitter Link Roundup #12 – Design, Small Business, Social Media And More

However, do you think another danger is *overreacting*? I recall the Motrin Moms storm, saw the video online, and was curious at the time why so many found it offensive. Then, later I read that most of the public hadn’t heard about it, and that a lot of moms in the target didn’t find the ad offensive at all. Is it possible that a small minority with a loud voice could cause brands to overreact — crashing guardrail to guardrail from debate to debate?

Certainly sophisticated social media monitoring tools can parse the data, give you metrics and numbers and weight the influencers etc. But I do wonder if social media runs the same risk as a public company constantly shifting strategy to hit its quarterly forecasts — lots of small leaps in the short term that don’t follow a consistent strategy. Social media’s heaviest users remain a fraction of the population; and within this subset are even smaller clusters of “opinion leaders” that often attract groupthink followers. Not all flag-wavers point in the logical direction.

Sometimes leadership requires listening … and sometimes it requires doing things that a chorus of complainers may not like. Would be interesting to see a model to help make the strategic decision of when to listen, like a million books now say, and when to tune out the noise.
Ben Kunz´s last blog ..An end to the Hot Waitress Index

To cite a few of your examples: The guy who goes to the “social event” and pitches his wares to people he doesn’t know will still be considered an idiot, it’s just that by definition, tales of his idiocy may not travel as far or as quickly. Regarding crisis, television made it impossible to just think about it over the weekend. Do we have to act even more quickly today? Absolutely. But the companies you mentioned would have been skewered in any era for their slow response.

As we try to navigate this social media code of ethics, I find it always comes down to behaving likely a normal, mature, considerate, ethical adult. Do that, and you’ll likely be fine wherever you decide to hang out.
Leo Bottary´s last blog ..How Smart Is Your Team?