The social web has started to feel like a bloody dangerous place. In the last few days there have been not one but two major PR disasters befalling household names. The first was Nestle’s appallingly handled response to the Greenpeace Palm Oil campaign, and today the CashGordon debacle has left both Labour and the Tories with pre-election bruising.
The Nestle debacle was covered in detail by my colleague Jon Clements on PR Media Blog but to summarise; a naive confrontation on the company’s Facebook Fan Page led to a full-scale debate on-line about deforestation in Indonesia and whether the brand’s use of palm oil was endangering the Orang Utan. It was a text-book case of ill preparedness and it seemed to outsiders as if the office junior in the marketing department had been entrusted with the global brand image. Whoever was looking after the Facebook page was unable to deal appropriately with criticism of the company and rather than defuse the situation the flames were fanned. For many people it was the first time they had linked KitKats with deforestation and it remains to be seen how many people will take a break from Nestle products.
Today’s pratfall was the collapse of the Tory attack site Cash Gordon. The site allowed web users to post unmoderated tweets with the #cashgordon hashtag. Having the words “Cameron is a paedophile” on a Conservative web site was just one of the unimagined consequences. Things got worse when a security flaw allowed the site to be hacked redirecting visitors in turn to the Labour website, a rickroll and a variety of shock sites. Twitter users were circulating the code online required for the hack before Tory HQ regained control and directed users back to the main party site.
Solutions are to be found in a mixture of digital know how good old-fashioned PR practise; plan and test assiduously in advance, rehearse Q&As, monitor and respond, escalate responsibility during a crisis and just becasue they are digital natives don’t let inexperienced people manage the fall out.
The advent of social media marketing and PR marks the beginning of the end for the use of demographics in targeting consumers.
One of the most powerful, authoritative and influential corporate voices in the world of UGC and the social web is that of Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford Motor Company, Detroit. He has over 30 thousand followers on twitter and is a genuine trail blazer in the use of social media marketing and PR techniques.
When websites first became available companies had to do with the issue of cyber squatting, where individuals with no connection to an organisation nevertheless registered obvious names for corporate websites and then sold them back often at exorbitant prices. This practice was eventually stamped out through legal channels and in some countries with the introduction of new laws.
The term cybersquatting was coined when websites first became publicy available. People would buy domain names using company or brand names or the names of celebrities and then try to flog them back at inflated prices. A similar thing is now happening in social networks but potentially the outcomes are far more damaging.
Ben and Jerry are no strangers to the world of PR. They regularly harness the power of word of mouth to promote their products and they actively promote their good works through the media. The latest Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream flavour is particulalrly interesting and not just because it piggy backs the news story of the century.
Companies are waking up to what is happening with their brands and there is concern in the boardroom. To them the web 2.0 world is the wild west. There are people staking claims, there are outlaws and there are wild rumours of huge fortunes. This is a digital frontier where the laws of the old world do not apply and voices are raised against the might of the old corporations. There are already celebrated examples of major brands and corporations capitulating in the face of on-line challenges like the David and Goliath battle between Jeff Jarvis and the mighty Dell. 
The growth in the power of brands in the 20th Century was partly achieved with the use of iconic visual imagery. 
PR and the Social Web 