Companies and individuals get social media wrong all the time. It’s rare, however, to see the type of PR disaster that enveloped Gillian McKeith yesterday.
If you missed the debacle, here’s a summary:
- A user of Twitter expressed excitement at reading a chapter of Dr Ben Goldacre‘s book, Bad Science, devoted to McKeith’s practices.
- McKeith (or someone tweeting from her official Twitter account) responded to the user accusing her – bizarrely – of bigotry against Americans. (Since McKeith’s PhD was gained in America.) Crucially, she also inferred that Dr Goldacre was a liar. (A very serious, and indefensible defamation.)
- At this point, the sceptic community on Twitter began picking up on the issue – tweeting with hashtags such as #Iherebydefamegillianmckeith and #gillianmckeithhasnophd
- She quickly became one of the top trending topics on Twitter, and as the momentum started to build, she made an incredible move – her tweets moved to the third person, and she wrote a load of tweets that were sharply deleted (They are captured for posterity here). Links to her Twitter account were removed from her official site, and she tweeted “Do you actually believe this is real twitter site for the GM?” Unfortunately for her, the link to her Twitter account is still visible in the source code of the site, at the time of writing.
What could she have done differently?
Assuming that @gillianmckeith is the woman’s real account, or is at least under her control, there are many lessons to be learned from this story.
Firstly, nobody likes a bully. McKeith is renowned for being somewhat litigious and silencing her critics through legal threats. This approach is anathema to the way social media operates, where engagement is key. Your critics provide invaluable feedback, and should be regarded as an opportunity to improve your product offering.
As an example, imagine if she had sent a complimentary book to the original tweeter. Instead of creating the storm that she did, she would have come across as looking to present her side of the story; listening to her critics and reaching out with generosity rather than insults and threats.
Secondly, her response to the crisis was disastrous, to say the least. In claiming that the account was not associated with her (when clearly it had been), she showed real contempt for the online world. Dishonesty and backtracking will get you nowhere, and in any case, the situation had been captured by numerous sources – the caches of search engines, and the screenshots of many users. Links to these spread like wildfire, and will irreparably damage your reputation.
Assuming again that Gillian McKeith (and people working with her) are responsible for this situation, she has given us a prime example of why employing a professional social media management company is money well spent. If you don’t thoroughly understand the opportunities and pitfalls of social media, the damage to your reputation can be incalculable.
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