In retrospect, choosing a D+ to brand an institution of higher learning probably wasn’t the best idea ever. Which Drake officials quickly realized and modified.

The point is not to make my school look dumb. The point is that if trained professionals hired from the outside can make blunders — and we ALL do — then we can gain by letting marketing students have a greater role than classroom exercises on fake client accounts. Let’s allow these students to have a true voice in creating brand strategy while their agency counterparts act in a more mentoring role. If I can assume that the class is divided into small agency-like account teams to work on the school’s brand, I think we can get better results everyone will be happy with. Here are some suggestions.

Step 1: Agencies, stop being judges and get in there with the students in the trenches.

This isn’t Project Runway, Top Chef or another reality show. I think we can do better than have three agency staffers sit there at the end of a classroom project, judge which campaign is the finest and throw comments at a fresh-faced student in between sips of our Starbucks coffee. Instead, if you’re going to help kids develop a brand that’s reflective of their University, they need your help from the very beginning. Whether in an Instructor role or simply being accessible throughout the week, your time and input is needed to kick off the brand development of the University in the best possible way. You have the expertise. You have the resources in-house. Guide them as you would your own team. In doing so, you will give them a tiny taste of what agency life is like when small teams collaborate to create a brand that not only “looks cool,” but is strategically sound. These students need to appreciate the concept of the target audience(s) they are speaking to. What drives these audiences? What shapes their behaviors? One of the major audiences they will speak to is a potential incoming student, not unlike they once were. Other audiences will be alumni. The faculty. Parents of existing students. Parents of potential students. How will each of these audiences be addressed under one brand umbrella and which distinctive media will be used to address them? There’s nothing more rewarding to me than mentoring someone who can’t wait to be a part of our industry for real. So don’t just be a judge on the sidelines at the end. Be a mentor at the beginning and all the way through.

Step 2: Students, you’re about to step up to the plate and have some awesome responsibility. Understand what you’re being entrusted with.

Namely, the brand development of your own school. Obviously I believe you deserve this opportunity. Understand that with that responsibility comes dedication. This is a real, living brand with many vested interests in it. The agency mentors will guide you as will your professors. But remember, before you think about clever headlines and compelling visuals, you need an insight of what makes your school different. You won’t find it overnight. You may have to speak with those audiences I mentioned above to get their input and look for common patterns. You’ll have to think about what makes your school great while being honest about what its most glaring weaknesses are. Because if you’re not being truthful with a target audience that looks a lot like you, they’ll cut through the you-know-what faster than you can blink. And don’t forget to listen to the other members of your team. Don’t shoot them down in your brainstorms with “no, that won’t work.” Finally, if the agency members are involved more intensively the way I suggest, see it for the opportunity that it is. Take advantage of their knowledge and don’t be intimidated to ask questions. They aren’t rock stars. They’re people just like you and me. Like you, they were students once. Students who might not have even thought to go into this field at the time.

Step 3: Professors, you’re the glue.

What I mean by that is that you’re not only the teachers in this process but the coordinators between students and agency. Like the agency folks, you have to be abundantly accessible outside of classroom hours. If you spent any time in an agency, you know that this isn’t a 9-to-5 industry. If you want to simulate it for your students, you have to be a constant advisor to the agency “mini-teams.” All the while, you have to make sure the agency people who are co-advisors do their job and maintain their involvement. This may not be their primary job but it does require a commitment. No matter what pitches they have to put together in their own world, they need to spend time in yours as well. The more they do, the more they can help prepare your students for the potential requirements they’re about to encounter when they graduate. There was a time when I was a student that I couldn’t fathom writing an ad in just one day. Now, of course, I know better. But your students can’t comprehend that yet. The more “real” to the real world you can make the brand development experience in tandem with the people who are still in that world (the agency people), the more your students will benefit in their preparation. And after all, isn’t that what you want for them?

When students can have a greater role in their own institution’s brand development and agency people can have greater involvement from the beginning and professors live in a very real world beyond textbooks teaching advertising history, the results are wonderful all around for everyone who is a part of it. I see collaborations that benefit advertising and marketing programs, which in turn helps the institution live up to the promise of being very much in touch with the times. These closer relationships make it all the more likely that the brand being developed is one that is more reflective of everyone who comes into contact with it — not a brand that is primarily created in an agency conference room far away from campus.

In the home stretch, in the span of one half-hour newscast at 11pm, almost entirely all of the commercials were related to politics. Back-to-back-to-back-to back ads of politicians who were yammering away not so much about their own positions but about why their opponent just didn’t “get it.”

When you have such a lineup, all people can really hear is noise.

Which got me thinking about what does and doesn’t work in political advertising. Try as they might, most of these politicians from both sides of the aisle don’t know how to brand themselves very well at all. Which is ironic because if they’re supposed to serve the people, why aren’t many of them addressing those issues in their personal brand?

Yes, somebody has to win. But that may just mean the other guy or gal was an uninspiring dope. Heck, the electorate may have chosen the lesser of two evils. Hardly means that’s the ringing sound of a crystallized message.

To think of how badly many politicians position themselves – or should I say, a strategy of “the other guy sucks,” imagine them as a product instead of a person. Let’s say that product they represent is a mop and they said in an ad – “I’ll tell you what the Do-Everything Mop is not going to do. It’s not going to act like other mops you’ve had. If you take a look at these competing mops, you see those mops don’t pick up dirt and grime. They’re lousy. They’re weak. They’re old. They’re useless.”

Tearing down your opponent without a compelling reason for why people should choose you contributes to garbage. It doesn’t respect your audience’s time.

OK, so what does your mop do? Most of the time, we don’t get that other side of the story and when we do, rarely is it told well.

So here’s an idea for those of you running in 2012: Don’t give your opponent more air time than they deserve by attacking them. Give yourself all the air time to state your position.

For example, let’s take a fake candidate’s position:

“GETTING REAL INSIGHT #3: Unemployment”

“It’s time to get real about jobs in this state. Research from the (respected newspaper) tells us that unemployment in our area is approaching drastically high levels. I’m not here to tell you something you already know or rip on my opponent because your time is valuable. We can complain or we can talk actions. So let me tell you what I’m going to do about it. I believe that there are three steps we can take in the state Senate that can put us back on the right path: (A, B and C). If you want to hear more, go to my website at (address).”

Media planning? Let’s not just buy up all the TV and radio spots we can muster and depend on them to sell the whole message. Media habits have shifted. Let’s use traditional advertising to drive people to the web, where communities form. I’m talking traditional advertising combined with social media, which by now, I think we can take a legitimate avenue for results since they played a strong part in getting a President of the United States elected.

Sure, Facebook and Twitter have their place at the table. But let’s also use video chats and Skype connections to campaign staffers. E-cards. Flickr pages. Interactive polls and surveys. Mobile.

If you’re going to use e-mail, use it to constantly educate people on candidate positions instead of constantly asking for dollars. You’ve got to earn that support, not beg for it endlessly through an “in” box.

Most are still going to do politics as usual, which means trashing the opponent and injecting fear more than telling their own story. I expect that to some degree until the end of time. Yet, if the goal is to stand out in a way that’s compelling to the undecided voters and motivating already strong supporters to mobilize, savvy candidates have no choice but to consider fresh ways to make information more accessible than ever to those who crave it. In other words, inbound marketing has never been more important.

Now that’s change I can believe in.

Hilarious. As I smiled whenever I heard this, inside I winced with pain. Because underneath it all was the false notion that if a picture says a thousand words, then an explanation in the form of copy must not be necessary. True, many an ad can work on little or even no copy. But never? Oh no. I couldn’t face that. I didn’t want to face that.

Then one day, copy mattered more than it ever did before. These are such days. Because, although it is not the same exact animal as advertising, social media has brought the importance of compelling content to the forefront. Of course, I’m not suggesting great copy is all it takes to build a Fan/Follower/Connection base. There are other ingredients necessary for success, like identifying the niche you’re trying to tell your story to (and in return, listen to) and figuring out if the timing is right to talk to that niche of people. Just for starters.

But just because you offer e-mail subscriptions and RSS Feeds doesn’t mean the sign-ups will happen. People aren’t going to opt in to everything just because they can. And that’s where if you can write the copy in a way that speaks to the issues/challenges/pains of those people and not just to yourself, they’ll read the copy. And continue to read the copy over and over again. Every last word.

Yes, I know the difference between advertising and social media. The dialogue is different and of course, one is more one-way selling while the other is more two-way conversing. But in the right circumstances, the two different worlds can “live together” in harmony for a brand. And that harmony can’t happen without – you guessed it – the copy.

“Others complained to us that there had to be a much easier and efficient way to settle an estate,” says Adam Mait. “That’s when the concept of Knowtification.com was really born.”

From a family tragedy came a new company with a purpose – to locate assets owned by the deceased, such as bank accounts and life insurance policies. Knowtification does this by sending correspondence to hundreds of financial institutions and instructing them to contact the account beneficiaries directly if there is account information in the name of the deceased.

With the full disclosure that Knowtification is a client of mine, what makes me admire companies like these is that they are so much more than “products and services.” They are born with a much larger picture in mind of leaving others in a better place than where they were. For the Mait brothers, the purpose for forming their own company grew out of making the lives of others smoother in the face of a tragedy because they knew exactly how challenging and frustrating that experience could be themselves. They do not merely help in locating assets – the bigger picture is that they help in healing.

This may seem like I’m about to veer into heady “Why are we here/what’s the meaning of life” territory, but this is more down-to-Earth than you think.

The fact is, beyond moving product or selling a service, I believe we have to have a larger reason for doing what we do. To leave others in a better place than where they were. Some people don’t care about this perhaps, but lately and more than ever, it’s become a big deal to me.

What about marketers? Agency folk have it burned into our brains that it’s all about the work, the work, the work. And I completely agree that we have to make our end result as creatively stimulating as we can from a writing and design standpoint. But dare I say it, there’s something deeper than that for me. I believe the larger purpose for me begins long before an ad is created. It occurs at the first stage of a client relationship when I’m helping them formulate a brand strategy. Because at that point, I’m giving businesses the ability to crystallize a thousand different thoughts within their own walls into a direction that makes sense and what I believe makes them unique. There’s something extraordinary about seeing the look on a person’s face when they realize how their dreams and goals can transition into tangible steps. This moment helps them cross the bridge and they’re pumped more than ever. It doesn’t guarantee success, but it just means that at that specific moment, hopefully, they’ve gained a new and unprecedented level of clarity.

Of course, that’s just my purpose and everybody is different. But my point is that even businesses that seem like they are providing “ordinary” products and services can view themselves as doing much more. One of my new favorite shows is “Undercover Boss,” in which a CEO disguises himself or herself to look like a company employee and perform a variety of tasks. The goal of the experience is to see what it’s like when the executive steps out of the boardroom and into the trenches with the rest of their staff that help make their company go on a day-to-day basis. But the end result is so much more emotional than the CEO ever dreamed, realizing that there are real people with real challenges behind the company, not mere employees. Buttoned-up C-level executives break down and cry when they come to discover about how much heart their people have. The CEO is, many times, forever changed to the point of where they implement new company initiatives framed not in driving higher sales but in making the culture so much greater and inviting than it was before. They find new purpose in what they do. And I’ll wager that it inspires them like nothing else.

What do you feel about this concept? When you dig deeper, beyond simply “what you do,” what do you see your company’s reason for being…to be?

Yet, it’s occurred to me that there’s still ample room for a tool that really, really just gets me. It can see what I like, such as the articles I click on or download. And from there, it can pinpoint – not suggest – websites and articles that I find interesting.

That’s the next challenge I see right now for social media tools – there’s a lot of guessing and suggesting of things I might like, but it’s only so accurate. It’s just putting a lot of stuff out there that I can like and a lot of stuff that I don’t. That’s OK. But it’s kind of like tossing 300 kids in a pool and trying to find yours instantly. You can’t do it that quickly. Little Billy’s in there, but it’s going to take some time to find him among the other kids.

What I’m getting at is there’s still an opportunity for a social media tool to be so much more customized and actually “learn” what people like and get “smarter” about those choices. Yes, there are some nominees here, but they aren’t there yet. For example, StumbleUpon can allow you to indicate your preferences, but it’s also influenced by friends and fellow “stumblers.” Maybe this is a very un-social thing of me to say, but sometimes I don’t want or care about that. I want my preferences to appear first and foremost.

Let me here you naysayers: “But what about our privacy?”

Rest assured, I don’t want other people to know my preferences or yours without our consent. Those preferences are private, mine alone and should be my choice to share with the rest of the world. Not Google’s choice, Facebook’s choice or anybody else’s. That said, I don’t mind if a tool that keeps my preferences private can be remarkably customized to my tastes and only becomes more customized to those tastes with each day.

The next great opportunity isn’t in giving me a stream of endless options but in supplying me with the laser-focused paths that otherwise save me the time of searching.

There’s always going to be room for improvement. And when we cross over from suggestions to really intelligent recommendations, well, that’s a tool I’d like to try out and provided it’s easy to use, one I’d like to incorporate into what I do daily.

How about you? Are there any tools you’ve used in the online world that match your preferences amazingly well in recommending accurate content? I’d love to hear about them.

1. I don’t hire artists and poets. I hire Designers and Copywriters.
If you want to do art and poetry, do it in the privacy of your own home. In fact, don’t even get into our business if you want to be an artist or poet. Because here, you get paid for your design and writing. That means your “expression” is not always going to be favored by the client. You will have to revise it. Again and again. And just when you think it’s approved, you’ll revise it a few more times. Believe it or not, this will make you a better designer and writer because you will be continuously challenged to work within tight parameters and find ways to be nimble while you strive to deliver a product that is every bit as good — and hopefully better — than your original concept.

2. Get anything that doesn’t resemble an ad out of your portfolio. Now.
Wow, what an interesting illustration of the lead singer of Metallica. When do you plan on presenting a concept like that to one of our clients? Oh, I know — you just wanted to show me you can illustrate. Seriously, it’s cool that you have that versatility. But I’ve got a better idea: List that skill on your resume. Then, if I ask about your illustration, you can show me examples of that skill kept separately from the rest of your work, prefacing it by saying, “I realize that this concept isn’t an ad obviously, but if you want to see my illustrative skill, I have some examples here I can show you.”

3. You will not always work on what you want to.
I have worked on insurance, mortgages and semiconductors. You can make anything fun and creative if you push yourself hard enough. For me, the satisfaction in doing what I do comes from completely absorbing myself in the client’s business so I can understand their challenges and then produce a creative product that addresses that challenge. Look, many accounts are not “sexy.” Yet many writers and designers want to work on the “sexy” accounts. Now imagine how much more you’ll stand out by being the writer or designer who wants to work on anything at any given time — with a smile on your face while doing it. Stay hungry and stay humble.

4. Where you worked before doesn’t mean as much to me as you think.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m impressed that you worked here or there. Because that place you worked was probably a hard place to get hired. But I’m much more interested in the ideas in your portfolio. I’m also incredibly interested in the course of our conversation that you aren’t an arrogant prima donna that won’t get along with my team or a person who turns his/her nose up at an assignment.

5. Get to know my agency before you write or call me.
I know all the tricks. You think that you can get a little more of my attention by sending me a form letter that says “I respect the methodology of (AGENCY NAME HERE) and I’d like to work with you because you do work on (ACCOUNT NAME HERE).” Nice try. But I can tell that you’re trying to send out as many emails and letters as possible in hopes of something that hits. After all, all you need is one, right? Wrong. That’s a lousy way to look for a job and any agency worth a dime is going to sniff out the fact that you didn’t do your homework on them. So spend some time getting to know our company. Go to our website. Read our philosophy and get a feel for what makes us tick. Send me a letter that convinces me there’s no way in the world you would know the things about us that you do unless you really absorbed what WE are about. Yes, it’s more time-consuming to do this. I’m sorry, am I putting you out to spend 15-30 minutes studying me but you want 15-30 minutes of my precious time? It works both ways. Prove to me you give a damn.

6. Don’t make the kind of mistakes you would’ve been caught for in elementary school.
Spelling errors on your resume? Are you kidding me? That does a lot for my confidence. Thanks for the red flag that says you don’t pay attention to the details on important jobs. Next candidate, please.

7. Talk strategy with creativity.
There are many, many, many creative people out there. But let’s get one thing straight. You are not here to do cool ads. You are here to supply business solutions in a way that is strategically and creatively incredible. Creativity without strategy is a pretty picture and flowery words. It will impress me more if you go beyond saying, “I did this because it’s cool” and instead say something along the lines of “The target audience being a group of people in the southwestern United States between 25-35, it was clear that this group uses and responds to media in a way that’s different than their older counterparts. With this in mind, I built a campaign driven by their behavior that includes….” Remember, creativity is not solely about the content, but also in the way you are creative in the use of media in relation to the target audience. That shows me a strategic thinker who also happens to write/design.

8. Respect my time and rules for interviewing.
“Can’t I just come in and show you my portfolio?” Sure, total stranger. Let me move everything on my plate to accommodate you. Or maybe you can send me a resume and PDF samples of your work along with the aforementioned letter that shows me you would like to get to know my agency. Once I receive that, we can potentially move on to the next step. It’s a relationship we’re potentially having here and I’d like to make the right choice by taking my time. I know you need a job now, now, now, but I want to make sure I have the right people on the bus if I have an opening. Chemistry accounts for a whole lot in these parts.

9. Don’t be a pest.
Call and email me every day and you will not get hired. Persistence does not get you the job. It gets you a Restraining Order. You can check in from time to time to see where I’m at in my decision making process, but just be reasonable at the same time.

10. Never, ever turn down an informational interview.
I’m not hiring right now? So what? Next week can change. The big man upstairs can smile upon me and rain 5 large accounts on my doorstep next week (I can dream). Which means if you’ve left a good impression with me, I’ll remember you and you’ll have been in the right place at the right time. Or perhaps I might know of someone in town who could use your services if I can’t. Again, show that you have an interest in my agency, not just a job.

I hope these words from the other side of the desk give you inspiration and encouragement on how to tailor your approach toward the agencies and other types of businesses you might be interested in. Granted, some of these words are blunt but remember they’re for your own good. If I don’t tell you this stuff, you might get eliminated from the process for the simplest of reasons. Here’s to you standing out from the rest and making the finish line at a place that you absolutely love working.

When our company started a few years ago, we took the tour of a big printer’s facilities. The President was there, but it was clear that he didn’t have much to want to do with us other than shake our hands and be on his way as he passed off the tour responsibilities to an associate. It was a good way to make a small firm like ours feel even smaller. Sort of felt like Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman” before she met Richard Gere. You give me that attitude? Big mistake. BIG mistake.

But then we came across another printer. He too had great printing facilities. But he brought something else to the table that other people wouldn’t. He believed in our company. He got to know us, our talents, our mission and our goals. He didn’t just say “we have this and that piece of equipment.” He said, “What do you guys want in a print partner?” and “Here’s how I can make your jobs easier.” He even believed in us to the point of where he stuck his neck out for us on numerous occasions in the early years of our agency when perhaps he didn’t have to. If I have a complex project that can’t be explained over the phone, I can have him in my office the next day.

I’ve been working with this particular printer ever since.

Unlike that very first tour I took of another printing company, I can get the President of the printer we work with on the phone immediately and we can talk about a project. I get a quote from him within 48 hours. His company understands that his accounting department has to match up with my client’s accounting department.

Some printers may or may not say this relationship is unusual for their business. But then, these are the same people who come up to me at the end of the year and say, “Hey, why haven’t we done anything with you lately?”

Well, here’s why:

Because you weren’t willing to offer creative solutions to my client’s budget challenges.

Because you didn’t consistently educate me on new technologies and formats related to printing that I could incorporate into solutions for my clients.

Oh, there’s nothing wrong with you as a vendor. You do your job just fine. The print quality is great. But as a partner? Not quite there yet.

Because the hard truth many don’t want to face is that machines are a commodity and people are not. While I expect the highest quality product each and every time, I come back due to the highest quality service.

Of course, I also understand that it’s inevitable that things happen. Machines break down. Edges get cut poorly. Inks aren’t quite at the level they should be on a recent run. It’s not a perfect business in printing and often the mishaps are corrected. But here again, the difference of vendor and partner appear. A vendor says, “This happened. We’re trying to fix it. I’ll keep you posted.” A partner says, “This happened. But if we don’t get it corrected shortly, here’s what we’re going to do to make sure we make our client’s deadline.” The key word being OUR. The print partner takes ownership and sees my client very much as their own client too. Which they really are.

More than one printer can occupy the role of partner. It’s just that I’ve found from my experience that there are many good potential print vendors and only a very, very, very select group of print partners. However, if you can land on the side of partner, be consultative and gain an understanding for what my client wants to achieve rather than just asking me what the specs of a given piece are, we can do a lot of business together.

As brand development consultants, we can keep banging our heads against the wall and preaching “set aside 1 hour or more per day” for social media, watch clients roll their eyes and see this vital tool be forgotten about. Or we can be consultative partners in building that presence for them to point of handling every last blogpost and tweet for them.

If we’re going to keep preaching the benefits of social media – and I have witnessed those benefits firsthand – then I believe we have to help people do it to the point of where we do it for them.

What I am getting at is that there is an alternative if you don’t have the time for social media. Hire someone who does. This isn’t easy. You can’t just dial up a freelance writer and say “Hey, you write pretty well, can you blog for me?” Uh-uh. Remember, you are choosing someone who has to be intimately involved with what your company is about, your brand, your processes, your people, your goals and your customers. They have to sound like they work there and have worked there for years, even if they don’t and haven’t.

Let’s be absolutely clear – nobody can sound more authentic than you and if you or someone in your company can generate the voice of your social media presence, it’s a very good thing. But if not, the person you hire to step into that role has to come as close to your voice as possible.

Some people disagree with me on this, which is fine. They say it’s not authentic to write in the voice of a person or company if you aren’t actually that person or work for that company. What I argue is that as long as that person or company provides a rubber stamp of approval in a very timely fashion to blogs, tweets, articles, etc., social media representation can work. They are approving of the communication that goes out into the world that they don’t have time themselves to generate.

So as you evaluate someone to be an extension of you, keep these 5 thoughts in mind:

1) Be in agreement on the channels.
Don’t leave it up to the person or company representing you to choose the mix for you. Get on the same page. Make them explain why this makes sense for your audience and marketing strategy, not just because everybody else is on LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.

2) Quick approval is key.
Social media execution has to be timely and consistent, therefore the approval process has to be as well. If I have to wait 4 weeks for you and/or a chain of command to approve things, it’s not going to work.

3) Have one person internally be the quick approver.
Social media approval by committee is such a bad idea that if you’re going to water down content and make the approval process bottleneck that much, you should just not do social media at all. Have one person be the designated approver of content, make sure they understand the responsibility of the role and keep the momentum going. And make sure that internal approver has a very accessible back-up.

4) Don’t micromanage every last word.
If you’re going to do that, just generate social media content yourself. Why did you bother hiring someone and wasting everyone’s time? Of course you should have a say in the content. But you’re actually making it worse to put everything that goes out into the world through an extreme filter. If you can’t get with the idea that the person or company you’ve hired has to sound like a human being in some form, you shouldn’t hire someone to represent you in the social media universe. Be hands-on and be timely with approving but don’t be so hands-on with editing the other person’s content that you do yourself more harm than good. There has to be some degree of trust going on here. Allow a certain flexibility in the tone and message that must come with one human being trying to talk to others. And then, do what I’m talking about in point #5.

5) Communicate regularly with the person or company generating content to talk about future direction, results, goals and more.
Remember, this content is still representing you and you very much require a say in the overall direction, including whether or not a shift in channels and message is necessary.

For most companies I’ve seen, social media makes sense as part of an overall strategy. In all likelihood, yours is probably one of those companies. But the idea that social media content generation is a “done by the company or done by nobody” proposition is one I challenge and have proven wrong.

“Ghost writing” has been done for many years before the appearance of social media, so the concept of writers and artists handling communication on behalf of clients is nothing new.

So don’t worry about not having time for social media. It would be ideal if you did. However, if you don’t have time for it but want to find yourself involved in it, as I’ve outlined above, there’s another way in. And if you don’t take advantage of that road, well, then you really have only yourself to blame.

We could probably guess that Facebook Fans spend more money on brands they are fans of, more likely to continue use of a brand and more likely to recommend that brand to others. And while the figure may or may not apply that well to your particular situation (your average Fan may spend even more on your product or service, not lower), the point is that there is often some spending power that is very real behind people who express their love for you, and it’s not confined to merely a “Like” button.

It becomes important to note this when we’re still hearing people question the value of social media — “Yeah, OK. So they’re a Fan. But what does that really mean?” It means that the power of Word-of-Mouth doesn’t merely come from the traditional places it used to and hopefully more studies and surveys such as the one just completed can continue to show that social media is here to stay as a very real initiative. Because if the value truly is anywhere near the ballpark of $136 per Fan, the value of a company engaging in social media and building a presence in places they never had before becomes that much more of an intelligent marketing decision.

You have to be realistic about the situation at hand. You can’t hide the fact that gallons of oil have spilled into the Gulf or that flight after flight is cancelled, inconveniencing customers at the airport. The goal isn’t to put lipstick on a pig of a situation. People are too smart for that and you’ll draw the ire of customers and prospects alike.

Instead, I find the organizations that 1) Make their leaders regularly accessible and visible to the press and public, 2) Communicate next steps with their audience consistently and 3) Don’t pretend they know all the answers and 4) Provide multiple avenues for feedback are companies that tend to minimize the fallout as much as possible. In BP’s case, it’s not like a new logo or new name is going to hide the fact that their product is ruining an ecosystem. The focus has to be on taking complete responsibility (which they didn’t at first) and how they’re going to be helping the environment — from wildlife to economic — as a result of their ongoing efforts. Again, this is where social media can shine a light on that story. People aren’t going to fall in love with them, obviously, but ignoring the affected isn’t an option either. In such scenarios, 2-way communication via social media becomes more important than ever.

CEOs can either choose to engage or have the story written by people who will fill in the blanks with commentary against the company.