Brands Beware: The Speed of Negative Word-of-Mouth

Important read in USA Today this morning (Laura Petrecca) about the speed with which negative PR travels in this word-of-mouth (Twitter, YouTube, Blog, etc) world. I'm quoted suggesting that businesses in this environment need to think much more like "political advance people" -- always anticipating what can go wrong. Every large and small business, and certainly the advertising community, needs to internalize these realities.  From an "actionability" perspective, brands need to be a really disciplined around two of the key credibility drivers I articulate in my book, Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3000: listening and responsiveness.  Listening is what provides the early radar to determine when things are headed in the right or wrong direction and "responsiveness" is all about how we address those early signals. Brands with strong feedback loops, social media experiments (e.g. Twitter accounts), and "sense and respond" websites tend to be in a much better position to respond to and remedy difficult issues.   Follow On Twitter