In the wake of another celebrity social media meltdown this week, the question "where is his publicist?" has appeared from commenters in almost every article on the topic.
Let me start by stating this is not a gossip column, nor an attempt to cover content outside of social media. Twitter, as well as any other form of social media is vital for celebrities and brands. Chris Brown is not the first of either to make a public mistake online, as the photo gallery below will attest.
Whether you love or hate the guy, the real question here is: how do you recover from that level of damage on social media?
"One of the best and worst things about social media is the instantness of it. Which means it's very good and it's very dangerous," says Ronn Torossian, CEO and president of 5W Public Relations. "I think any time there's a lot of opportunity there's also a lot of risk in social media"
Torossian is a crisis communications expert who has represented and worked with celebrities such as Snoop Dog, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Nick Cannon and Pamela Anderson.
Crisis communications is a branch of public relations that deals specifically with protecting an individual or company facing a challenge to their reputation. Pros in this field are hired either before or mid-crisis.
"You can rest assured that PR firms are very involved with their client's Twitter," explains Torossian. "Sometimes they'd rather be more informed, more involved — and other times, the celebrities won't listen."
Because Twitter is so prominent on mobile devices, Torossian says that managing celebrities has become much harder than it was before because they are now able to communicate with the public instantly.
"There is a saying in crisis communications: sometime you have a communications problem and sometimes you just have a problem. Chris Brown is a problem," says Dallas Lawrence, chief global strategist at Burson-Marsteller, where he counsels companies and organizations on effective reputation management solutions.
Celebrities are not the only ones making regrettable comments on Twitter. Large corporations have made errors, like when Entenmann's used a hashtag referring to Casey Anthony's trial verdict for marketing. We've also seen entire campaigns spiral out of control on social media, such as McDonald's or RIM.
Although misguided tweets and negative commentary after the fact can quickly spread like wildfire on Twitter, Lawrence says that many people are often accepting when brands or personalities make a mistake.
"The public is overwhelmingly willing to forgive and understand if they see sincere contrition and a change in actions." Apologizing is table stakes. The public now wants to see what you are doing to make good on that apology."
On some occasions, celebrities have deleted or taken a hiatus from their Twitter account after regrettably lashing out on social media, such as Alec Baldwin and Ashton Kutcher. However, Torossian says in this case, if Chris Brown were to delete his account, it would be a huge mistake.
"The fundamental rule of crisis is admit what happened, tell the truth and speak up," says Torossian. "That's what he should be doing — address it, 'I made a mistake,' now let's move on."
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