Fred Abaroa

I have been asked recently, "How do you handle bad press?" The first thing to realize is it is press. This gives you another way to get your name out. In most cases, and I did say most, all press is good for you. You have just been handed a reason to talk to the public who are waiting to hear more, in other words they are engaged. I know several businesses who's business actual grew as a result to bad press. One of which was really bad press. Second, how bad was it? I mean really, how bad was it. We have a tendency to be easily offended. I was sited in this article by Justin Ellis. Many came to me warning me I was in it and were a little worried. I was glad I was mentioned as opposed to this article Maine restaurants all a-Twitter where I wasn't mentioned at all. The latter I felt was bad press. Third take appropriate action. If it's true admit it and apologize, then offer some way to show restitution. If it is not true set up a time to speak to the reporter, I said speak not argue. Reporters are people too. With so many people out there trying to scoop each other it is more likely reporter may have not gotten all the facts. And in some cases understood the facts. The article where I was omitted is a good example. The reporter talks about a tweet-up as thought it were the same as getting people into the restaurant and one or two tweets got them there. A tweet-up is a meeting of people who tweet. The particular tweetup results mentioned wasn't the results of their tweeting. (The first tweet-up at this venue had 4 people and the last one had about the same) The success was a result of a few of us who have thousands of followers inviting people to come. Fourth Who saw the bad press? A case in point was the Motrin Mom backlash over a commercial showing a mom having pain from carrying her baby in a sling. The press was all over it. Well the research shows that compared to the general population of moms almost no one was complaining, not very many people saw the bad press and in reality a majority of mom's loved the commercial. The real one to look at is that not many people saw the press. Many people these days dont watch news and when they want their news they don't browse. So before you panic, think about who actually saw it. There should be a fifth but I think I made my point, All press is Press!

Fred Abaroa aka “CostaVidaFred”
The Marketing Imagineer

Twitter: @CostaVidaFred
Blogs:
www.CostaVidaFred.com
Podcasts:
WordOnTheTweet.net
MakingMountainsOutOfMoleHills.com