If You Can’t Say Something Nice Say Something Else
What should a company do when an online attack causes a public relations nightmare?
Do you ignore the negative comments or respond?
If you do respond personally — which is NOT recommended because you will make them more angry — use this rule: if you can’t say something nice say something else. Do NOT get angry, argue, say “sorry,” snap back at whoever it is!
Do not give the corporate response that you take every response to heart and are glad to talk to the person if only they would call you.
Do NOT Respond
Do NOT respond!!!
Despite recommendations, clients tend to respond immediately and deny, or defend, or clap back at the bad situation. Please, don’t do this!
Business owners call The Marketing Square in an anxious and angry panic when someone writes a bad review, shares a horrible comment, or, a terrible viral video goes out about their business.
Rule #1: Owners Should Not Respond
Business owners should NOT respond to this caustic situation themselves. Owners make it worse because they are not media trained, nor calm, nor familiar with how much more damage will be done.
Whether or not the complaint, lie, defamation or libel put online went viral, and no matter if it’s true or just a disgruntled employee. There is no response created by an owner that will help the situation.
Do NOT go toe-to-toe, or battle or debate publicly about a horrible thing that was said or done to you or your business.
Rule #2: Hire a Crisis PR Firm
Hire a Crisis PR expert who is trained in reputation defense. A responsible company should hire a crisis PR firm and let them handle all responses and next steps.
But make a clear statement about the situation with tact and aplomb or better yet talk about another situation.
That’s what public relations achieves by sharing YOUR message without inciting anger or fury by the person attacking your business.
What to Say
Obviously, words need to be chosen carefully and professionally. It’s not a good idea to take to Facebook a blog a TikTok, X, Google Review, or Yelp review and respond with flippant and furious remarks that could become libelous if worded improperly.
Tell a PR expert what happened ASAP. Let the firm decide whether to let things simmer down, or whether to close the door on an opportunity to make a meaningful statement to balance the situation
Don’t Stay Silent
The public hears one side only and it was not a flattering side. Don’t stay silent — go to a PR expert with experience in Crisis PR.
Turning off the media is almost impossible and when a call is made for a comment, that comment too should be carefully constructed.
This is where agency messaging and public relations planning is important to a company.
Waiting for the situation to go away is not helpful.
But with YouTube, X, Facebook, Google Reviews, TikTok and the myriad of social media just waits for new content and clickbait, with algorithms that favor inflammatory and dramatic and which rewards the hysterical.
Public Relations 101
If you can’t say something nice, then something else. Take the public forum by the hand and lead it in another direction.
Or have your public relations team tackle it and tell them to take on the social media, the press and fallout. That’s what crisis public relations achieves.
