How to not handle negative commentary online

In a rare opportunity to observe a social media train wreck in real time, I have provided some commentary on today's now infamous Sapient Nitro video:




In time, today's online activity will form part of several case studies on how not to handle a PR stunt gone wrong.

This was one of the first articles on the subject and it points fun at the video but misses some pretty vital questions to what happened this morning.
http://wallblog.co.uk/2011/11/15/how-not-to-make-an-agency-promotional-video-ii-by-sapient/

Sure, the video is ridiculously terrible. Sure, it got absolutely slated online but this was mostly by the industry, and mostly on Twitter to a predominantly UK audience - which is unfortunate given the video was not correctly credited and clearly was not produced by the Sapient UK office.

As an agency Sapient aren't mental, they didn't lose their minds, this was an innocent PR stunt from an award winning agency that was misread by its audience. Sapient could have easily allowed the negative commentary to flow freely and positioned the video as a tongue-in-cheek promo piece that was not meant to be taken too seriously (which is exactly what it is). If they had done that then they would have benefitted from trending on Twitter and looking like an agency that has no qualms with poking a bit of fun at themselves.

However, as soon as they started heavily moderating negative comments on Facebook and Youtube, they created a beast. The backlash was so strong that they were backed further and further into a corner (negative comments were pulled within a minute of being posted and the conversation swiftly moved from the moderated Facebook and Youtube pages to the unmoderated Twitter where it soon trended) until they resorted to pulling the video offline altogether.

In terms of damage control this was already far too late and Youtube account HelloYouCreatives had already ripped the video and put it back online for the benefit of referencing it in articles and enabling free commentary. As quoted from their blog, "we've re-hosted it as we believe that people should be free to comment."

Meanwhile, a twitter account has been set up as a way of trying to limit the damage and open a conversation. But this was too late in terms of people already viewing, posting their comments, and then watching them being deleted, and then reposting negative feedback about a brand that was ineffectively trying to control the freedom of speech online.

As poor as the video effort is, what is totally shocking is the complete incompetency and naivety with which Sapient Nitro handled the resulting commentary. As soon as they decided to moderate negative comments, they were doomed. Why was this not accelerated up the ranks to an experienced staff member who knew how to handle things? You cannot create a video about a digital agency and then expect to try and control feedback from the digital industry. Furthermore, you cannot push anything into a social space and then control the commentary on it - there is no longer a conversation and deleting comments has the same effect as shouting at everyone until they stop talking in ways you don't like.

An absolutely schoolboy error from Sapient Nitro, and an incredibly unfortunate one given that the activity of one branch of a global agency represents the agency as a whole. They're going to have to work hard to pull themselves out of this funk and it's a lesson to all global agencies to connect their online presence in a lot tighter and more reactionary way.