…. that PR has to dig you out of.

I was having a conversation with Heather Yaxley last night about companies using Social media.  We were saying about how there are many companies out there who are purporting to be experts in Social media and who are offering to put together marketing plans that use these new tools for their clients.  We were agreeing that for some companies this could prove to be very dangerous territory to enter.

Heather suggested that it is all too easy for marketeers to get their clients into a mess on social media and then they need PR professionals to dig themselves out of it.

Interesting then that I saw a tweet from Sam Shepherd at the Bournemouth daily Echo this morning pointing me to a URL on the Guardian web site about Neals Yard Remedies.   Not strictly social media, but relevant to our discussions all the same.  The whole point of the page was that people could ask questions of Neals Yard about their ethics and Neals Yard would then respond.

The result, hundreds of tricky questions and no response from Neals Yard, despite being chased by the page moderator who posted as follows:-

“have just had a chat with NYR.

Unfortunately, despite previous assurances that they would be participating in this blog post, I’ve now been told they ‘will not be taking part in the debate’.

So yes, as several people have pointed out, this has become something of ‘You Ask’, rather than a ‘You Ask, They Answer’. I’m still hoping NYR will reconsider.”

Some poor PR person has a lot of work on his hands to restore any sort of credibility to their name now.  Neals Yard may just dismiss it and say “it’s only one web site it doesn’t matter” but the power of social media is that this story is now being tweeted and re tweeted and it will grow I am sure.

Related posts:

1. Playing catch up on social media
2. Social Media ROI
3. When will PR professionals get up to speed on social media?

Related posts:

1. Social Media marketing can get you into a mess…..
2. LinkedIn, How useful can it be?