Photo by Valerie Everett

First off, apologies for the radio silence lately. We’ve been tightening screws and pitching while keeping a few other balls in the air. We’re back now.

Been thinking a lot lately about what happens when well-intentioned people use tools like Twitter, Digg, Reddit, etc., to snowball memes about companies without filtering or investigating themselves.

It’s been the subject of several discussions I’ve heard lately in podcasts like MediaHacks and blogs like Clay Shirky’s. I’m sure we’ve all been guilty of this at some point: You see a tweet from a trusted @friend about a company’s heinous FAIL, and without clicking on the link to read ourselves, we retweet it. It’s fast, it’s easy, and we appear on the cutting edge of the social media news cycle. It’s good for our personal brand, right?

In Clay Shirky’s post about the #amazonfail debacle back in April, he apologizes for falling victim to this emotional engagement that even his years of intellectual study could not prevent.

But multiply this by thousands and the company in question is in real trouble. Perhaps there is misinformation in the original post, but pitchforks and torches have been raised, and the angry mob is gaining momentum.

So what does this mean to companies who wish to avoid this? As I wrote in my Open Letter to Jeff Bezos, quick action and careful followups can help. The simple act of stepping outside your protective bubble of advisors and lawyers to say “We hear your concern and we’re looking into it. We’ll let you know as soon as we have an answer.” can stop thousands from jumping on the ANDwagon that perpetuates the ill will.