Ever read a Facebook status update (or a Tweet) that you did not agree with? Saw something online that made you mad? Found something offensive online?
Bad language? Cuss words? Half-baked perspective? Ignorant rant? I suppose you get the drift, but the question is, how did you react?
For brands, and for individuals, knowing when and what to respond…or to respond at all, makes a huge difference. And most of such instances can be broadly generalized into 3 buckets.
Before I get into the bucket(s), the reason why you should even care about the seemingly seamier side is for the simple fact that online utterances tend to stay forever (at least till the world exists, if not earlier), compared to real life utterances. They are also mostly archived for easy access, whenever someone wants to go through them. So, it is perhaps prudent to mull over the 3 buckets below, before entering your caustic, sarcastic or angry response.
1. Fact Vs. Opinion
For individuals: When something forces you to react, it’d help to segregate the fact from the opinion. One of my personal favorite quotes (source: anonymous!) goes, ‘The trouble with opinions is that people have them’. The key is to realize that everybody has an opinion and let that fact sink deep within your system. And chill.
For brands: If you are pointed to a fact about your brand/service/product and if it happens to be about something negative, you have two choices – you can set things right, if it is within your control. Or, you can ignore it, but not before you do a minor research on the opportunity cost of not acting on it. For things other than facts – do realize that you would be getting into an endless loop if you’re trying to respond to a negative opinion. Your options include ignoring it and using others (loyalists and evangelizers who may seem neutral to you and your brand) to share their not-so-negative/positive opinions to offer differing perspectives.
2. Bias Vs. Bias
For individuals: Remember…a bias could work both ways. Like ‘There is no spoon’, you could also argue that there is no center and the world consists only of sides. When someone seems biased to you, based on your perspective, the other person could well allege that you’re biased against his line of thought. It is nothing but a predisposition and it is entirely based on the kind of experiences we, as individuals, have. When you realize that, chill. And move on.
For brands: It is perfectly alright to be biased towards your own brand/product/service/industry, but it would help you not use that explicitly to put others down. The more participative you seem, the more loyalists you are likely to find for yourselves. On the other hand, for people having a bias for your rivals (generally, against you), you could go back to the fact vs. opinion part and assess the bias, if it is worth acting upon.
3. End the offend
For individuals: The most important point to consider – you need to allow yourself to get offended. Or outraged – to use a more happening variant of the word, at least on Twitter! No one can offend you on their own. It is a choice, really! Before getting offended and giving it back from your side, please do evaluate the value of such a response. Is the cause, or the person, worth your response? Your taking offense on a set of topics/themes reflects a lot about your personality – so take your cudgels after a careful thought. Social media is big enough for all kinds of characters to stay and engage – you choose to build your network and you have a choice in building the kind of network that you like and enjoy interacting with.
For brands: For brands (including personal brands like celebrities, minor or major)…remember the number of people looking up to you or simply watching you online. It’d be prudent to assess the relative benefits and disadvantages of uttering something that could be perceived as offensive. That said, anything could offend anybody – there would always be someone/a group that may be offended by everything you say. In that case, use words carefully and intelligently so that you have space for explanation, if your opinion is contested as offensive.
Despite offering such seemingly sane opinions on the seamier side of social media, I am (as we all are) human too. I get offended too. I hate some people online too. I abhor many opinions too. I have entered into pointless arguments online too, impulsively. So, it takes a genuine effort to remember the 3 buckets above before getting impulsive!
Photo by Ale Paiva, via SXC.