Social media has long been lauded as a wonderful way to connect with customers and to build excitement for your brand/company/etc. But social media can also be an amazingly effective crisis management tool. That is, if the tools are in the hands of someone that knows how to utilize them properly, and one Gary Vaynerchuk definitely does.
Recently GaryVee had a bit of a crisis situation on his hands. He has a site called Cork’d, which is a community site for wine lovers. The site was hacked, and worst of all, set up to re-direct to a porn site. And to make matters worse, Tech Crunch, arguably the most influential tech website on the planet, picked up on this and ran a post on it. Yikes!
Now let’s step back for a second and realize what has happened. One of Gary’s sites has been hacked, and not only hacked, but set to re-direct to a porn site. At this point, this is on the verge of becoming a full-blown disaster, but what Gary does next is the blueprint for how a company should handle an online crisis situation by using social media.
First, Gary understands that Tech Crunch is a massively influential and well-trafficked tech site, so he reads it daily. As a result, he saw the post about Cork’d getting hacked soon after it was published on Tech Crunch.
Second, he immediately set out to create a plan on dealing with this crisis. He left a response to the Tech Crunch post, but also left his response as a video comment. This allowed Gary to quickly address the situation, explain what had happened, why it happened, and that he was at fault. Tech Crunch readers immediately came to his defense and praised his response.
By quickly replying to the story, and in an honest and transparent tone, Gary immediately turned a potentially very negative situation into a positive experience. His response dictated the end result, as it always does in social media.
Gary also posted an excellent video recapping the day’s events, how he handled the situation, and what he learned. If you are interested in learning how social media can be used as a crisis management tool, this video is a must-view:
Key takeaways:
1 – Monitor social media channels. Gary was alerted to the problem with Cork’d because he reads Tech Crunch on a daily basis. He understands the power that Tech Crunch has in covering a space that’s important to his business.
2 – Use social media channels to respond. Gary immediately responded at the focal point, directly in the comments of the Tech Crunch story. He didn’t respond a day later because a reporter emailed him asking for a comment on the ‘Cork’d gets hacked Tech Crunch story’, he knew about the story shortly after it was posted, and addressed it quickly.
3 – Admit your mistakes. Gary admitted that the hack was partly because he hadn’t been paying as much attention to Cork’d as he wanted to. He came off to others as being someone that was humble and apologetic. When you are wrong, it’s best if YOU say it before everyone else does.
4 – Use social media to solve the problem. Because Gary is active on Twitter, he has a network of tens of thousands of friends that were willing to help him solve his problem. Gary reached out to them, and they quickly responded with help. Also notice that he was criticized by one user for not offering to pay, and another offered to solve his problem and added that his money was ‘no good’. Tara Hunt (@MissRogue), another ‘power’ Twitter user, also came to Gary’s defense.
5 – Build your Ark BEFORE it rains. Gary could lean on his community to help him through this crisis because he HAD a community. He had built up equity with these people for the past couple of years, and they were ready and willing to help him out.
One final thought. Notice that Tech Crunch went back and edited their original post to first add a link to Gary’s video comment, then to add the video above, which Gary posted on his website. Thanks to Gary being proactive, the very point where the crisis began, became a channel for Gary to not only diffuse the situation, but to build more equity by making a quick and proper response.
What did YOU learn from how Gary handled this?
Good post. In today’s world of immediate reactions, a crisis can sink you faster than you can imagine. Using the social media blogs, networks and sites is a great way to reach your public immediately. What was once good for traditional PR and media is even more true in the world of immediate connectivity.
“Social media has long been lauded as a wonderful way to connect with customers and to build excitement for your brand” – This has GOT to stop.
“This has GOT to stop”
As long as it’s working as a tool to do exactly that, why would we stop talking about it?
Mack and Gary – fabulous, fabulous, fabulous!!
The biggest things from your post and the video that I’d note (as someone who has been there!):
- monitor (can’t stress that enough)
- negatives don’t have to stay negatives (if you are open, honest and do the right thing, that is)
- build your “ark” now, before anything happens.
Mack, having been at the end of a loaded gun more than once (um, a crisis that is), I can’t say strongly enough how relationships (either with the media or your customers) help to neutralize the situation to the point where it’s no longer newsworthy. I just wish I had social media tools at my disposal at the time!
The thing is Gary understands social media, embraces the tools and isn’t afraid to have conversations. He is the major minority. Hopefully more PR/marketing/comm folks will help their companies to see the benefits of ‘building the proverbial ark’ WAY before a flood hits. (Even if it’s in the non-social media manner.) It’s just plain smart!
You’re right Beth, this didn’t escalate into a PR nightmare for Gary mainly because he’s actively participating on the most influential blog/site in his space. How many companies are willing to not only monitor the relevant blogs/sites covering their industry/space, but also are actively commenting there? Damned few.
But again, you build your Ark BEFORE it rains. You can’t lean on your community, if you don’t have one.
And Donna, Leslie, Bob, thanks for the comments!
Fortunately one need not read TechCrunch if you have set up your alerts and RSS to monitor your brand properly. For example this was ‘reported’ on Twitter (@timlemke) seemingly an hour earlier, per the TechCrunch article. My point isn’t to lament the chronological order of events, but highlight the importance of constantly listening in order to avoid any crisis issues and take advantage of opportunities. I understand that becomes difficult as your business/popularity grows, but never the less remains critical.
And any way I can avoid reading TechCrunch is fine by me
And that’s why Gary is the man.
The big advantage he has (other than the fact he totally gets it) is that because he owns it all, he doesn’t have to ask anyone before he responds. Lack of organizational friction helps A LOT in social media.
Mack, thanks so much for bringing this to greater light.
Sounds horrific, but these things always seem way worse than they actually are. These things happened and I’m glad to have this tip in the back of my head if the time comes.
Dies ist ein gro?er Ort. Ich m?chte hier noch einmal.
In today’s world of immediate reactions, a crisis can sink you faster than you can imagine. Using the social media blogs, networks and sites is a great way to reach your public immediately. What was once good for traditional PR and media is even more true in the world of immediate connectivity.
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