In the wake of another
celebrity social media meltdown this week, the question “where is his publicist?” has appeared from commenters in almost every article on the topic.
Let me start by stating this is not a gossip column, nor an attempt to cover content outside of social media. Twitter, as well as any other form of social media is vital for celebrities and brands. Chris Brown is not the first of either to make a public mistake online, as the photo gallery below will attest.
Whether you love or hate the guy, the real question here is: how do you recover from that level of damage on social media?
SEE ALSO: 6 Tips for Handling Breaking Crises on Twitter
“One of the best and worst things about social media is the instantness of it. Which means it’s very good and it’s very dangerous,” says Ronn Torossian, CEO and president of 5W Public Relations. “I think any time there’s a lot of opportunity there’s also a lot of risk in social media”
Torossian is a crisis communications expert who has represented and worked with celebrities such as Snoop Dog, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Nick Cannon and Pamela Anderson.
Crisis communications is a branch of public relations that deals specifically with protecting an individual or company facing a challenge to their reputation. Pros in this field are hired either before or mid-crisis.
“You can rest assured that PR firms are very involved with their client’s Twitter,” explains Torossian. “Sometimes they’d rather be more informed, more involved — and other times, the celebrities won’t listen.”
Because Twitter is so prominent on mobile devices, Torossian says that managing celebrities has become much harder than it was before because they are now able to communicate with the public instantly.
“There is a saying in crisis communications: sometime you have a communications problem and sometimes you just have a problem. Chris Brown is a problem,” says Dallas Lawrence, chief global strategist at Burson-Marsteller, where he counsels companies and organizations on effective reputation management solutions.
Celebrities are not the only ones making regrettable comments on Twitter. Large corporations have made errors, like when Entenmann’s used a hashtag referring to Casey Anthony’s trial verdict for marketing. We’ve also seen entire campaigns spiral out of control on social media, such as McDonald’s or RIM.
SEE ALSO: Hashtag Marketing: 9 Ways to Avert Disaster
Although misguided tweets and negative commentary after the fact can quickly spread like wildfire on Twitter, Lawrence says that many people are often accepting when brands or personalities make a mistake.
“The public is overwhelmingly willing to forgive and understand if they see sincere contrition and a change in actions.” Apologizing is table stakes. The public now wants to see what you are doing to make good on that apology.”
On some occasions, celebrities have deleted or taken a hiatus from their Twitter account after regrettably lashing out on social media, such as Alec Baldwin and Ashton Kutcher. However, Torossian says in this case, if Chris Brown were to delete his account, it would be a huge mistake.
“The fundamental rule of crisis is admit what happened, tell the truth and speak up,” says Torossian. “That’s what he should be doing — address it, ‘I made a mistake,’ now let’s move on.”
BONUS: 8 Celebrity Social Media Meltdowns
Ashton Kutcher
Kutcher got into hot water last month when he fired off a tweet defending Penn State coach Joe Paterno after Paterno was implicated in a scandal related to assistant coach Jerry Sandusky’s alleged history of sexually molesting children. “How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste,” the tweet said. Later on, Kutcher tweeted, “Heard Joe was fired, fully recant previous tweet!” and “Didn’t have full story. #admitwhenYoumakemistakes.” Shortly afterwards, Kutcher announced that he was turning over the management of his Twitter account to Katalyst Media, a firm he co-owns.
Click here to view this gallery.
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