Responding to Overzealous Followers While Representing Your Brand
Scott Monty has a tough job. As the head of Social Media for Ford Motor Company, it may seem like he gets paid to goof around on Twitter all day. And with over 6,000 followers, he certainly has built himself a pretty big megaphone for reaching his social media audience. Sounds easy – toss out a few mentions of your company’s minisites, interspersed with a few wisecracks, 140 character anecdotes, and the occasional link to a hilarious YouTube video, and it almost seems like anyone could do his job for their own company.
Yet Ford is unbelievably lucky to have Scott representing them in the social media arena. There are lot of people out there talking smack about Ford right now, and as Motrin learned, Twitter provides the ideal medium for an few individuals’ petty gripes to snowball into a mindless mob riot in the blink of an eye. It’s impressive to see the unbelievable amount of outreach Scott accomplishes every day: acknowledging and thanking countless Ford evangelists, objectively fielding criticism, and helping to set the record straight to cut off the spread of misinformation. Some have argued that his efforts singlehandedly averted a PR disaster surrounding a lawsuit last week.
All of that seems pretty tame when compared to the sheer insanity that I happened to observe Scott dealing with last Friday. Michael Leahy, of the self-evidently conservative group Top Conservatives on Twitter (#TCOT), came out left field to assail Ford under the auspices of offering marketing and operations consulting. I had actually been following Leahy for a while, intrigued by his overtly conservative bent among a community that would mostly seem to skew in a more progressive direction. I’m not sure what provoked Leahy’s berserk assault on Scott, but I watched in fascination and horror as the following trainwreck unfolded:
Scott, in the middle of a top level all-day communications strategy meeting, took the time to actually engage Leahy and his bizarre, belligerent requests to “sit down Ford CEO talk free market big help” (to paraphrase). I was truly impressed with the rational, respectful, yet assertive responses from Scott. He also made the wise decision to take this conversation to email as quickly as possible.
In this case, Scott chose to engage a critic — but the other challenge that he faces on a daily basis is knowing what to ignore. Maybe you’ve got dozens of Google Alerts set and live Twitter searches running 24/7 — you can’t respond to every mention of your brand, and in fact you probably shouldn’t. Prioritization is a big part of the reason for this, to be sure; but at the same time, it’s often even more effective to let other consumers — brand evangelists — come to the defense of your brand. Other times, the act of acknowledging a disparaging remark will bring far more attention to it if it was left alone, free to float away into obscurity.
Representing your brand in social media is no joke. Twitter, for instance, is by its very nature a fertile environment for the proliferation of misinformation — something that was brought to attention during the recent Mumbai attacks. Ultimately, though, a delicate balance between personality and professionalism underlies all the other tactical considerations. Be human and be helpful, and the rest will follow.
December 15, 2008 | Filed Under Business, Social Media
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8 Responses to “Responding to Overzealous Followers While Representing Your Brand”
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I’ve been highly impressed by how Scott has represented himself and Ford on Twitter and elsewhere, particularly given the attention on the auto industry right now.
This article does a nice job of highlighting just a sliver of what he has been doing, and you’re absolutely right, Ford is lucky to have him.
@cwestbrook
Nice catch. That exchange nearly made my head explode.
I’m really glad I left K Street and moved back to Indiana, I’ll just leave it at that.
Yes, I’ve been watching Scott Monty, too. I’m very impressed. Not only is he extremely skilled, he has done this long enough to develop that experience that turns into the sixth sense. It only comes with doing this for years.
I don’t envy his position one bit. There’s no one better for the job. I just wish GM had the same type of person who doesn’t belong to an agency… being an insider is key to making this work.
Your account was very objective, and I appreciate not having to sift through the drama to get to the story!
Nice of you to highlight this, Jamie. I was actually thinking over the weekend how lucky we *all* are that Ford was smart enough to hire Scott Monty.
He has shown how social media can be used effectively under the most difficult of circumstances, and remained true to himself throughout. A less skilled (and dedicated) person would have unraveled — and the business world is watching closely to see how these pioneering efforts fare. Lucky for everyone, this one has gone as well as could be expected.
[...] on his blog, Jamie Scheu writes about social media response hero, Scott Monty (Head of Social Media at Ford), and how he’s been [...]
Great to find your blog after Scott’s retweet. You have a new reader.
Smart post and funny because I just recently took note of another @ScottMonty conversation and sent it around to my colleagues as an example of a firm but graceful handling of a delicate situation.
http://tinyurl.com/65jsfm
Saw this post on WOMMA Word. I <3 Scott Monty. Not enough to buy a Ford, but enough to take a second look at least. He’s an incredible asset.
Scott’s been one of the only social media people I’ve seen on the brand side who will actually refute what he sees written and come on and discuss it. It’s the opposite of what usually happens where an agency or brand person lays down the PR spin. Couple of other major brands in the online space now could learn from that.