Shel Holtz's posting from earlier this week about the United Auto Workers strike against General Motors prompted me to reflect upon the value of social media in a crisis. As large companies go, General Motors has a been a vocal supporter of social media with, not one, but two corporate blogs FYI and Fast Lane.
The strike didn't last long enough to test either side's social media resolve but it was instructive nevertheless.
Think back to Monday. 73,000 United Auto Workers at 82 plants walked off jobs and launched the first strike against GM in more than 30 years. Thirty years ago the Internet was still in its infancy, and social media meant having your friends over to watch a ball game on television.
In response to the strike, GM issued the following statement:
Labor Situation
By Christopher Barger, Director, GM Global Communications Technology
"As you are no doubt aware by now, today the United Auto Workers chose to call a national strike against GM. We've seen a number of comments coming in regarding this situation, and we appreciate the interest and opinions that you, our readers, have about this matter. But as I am sure that you can appreciate, these are sensitive times involving sensitive negotiations; a public blog is not the appropriate place for us to be commenting about them, nor do we think it's constructive to entertain a discussion of labor issues here.
"This afternoon, we issued a statement regarding the UAW's decision; to this point, that is our only statement on the topic. Any future comments we have will be issued via press statement, and not here on FastLane. Thanks for understanding."
By way of comparison, I visited the UAW site and didn't see a blog.
For this strike, GM appeared ready to forgo social media. The Company had planned to rely on traditional media to communicate its position and deliver updates.
Without taking sides, I am certainly sensitive to GM's communications concerns, and I probably would have made the same recommendation under the circumstances. It must have been a tough decision, given GM's well-established record on social media.
Clearly permitting an open forum to debate a strike or discuss labor issues doesn't always serve a Company's, and most importantly, its customers' interest. As for investors, there are clear rules governing disclosure.
It may seem inconsistent to post in the good times and not the bad, but an effective strategy must be situational. Putting aside court order restrictions and laws governing labor negotiations, public discussions may sometimes inflame more and mollify less.
As crisis communications expert and author Eric Dezenhall told me, the most successful communications in a crisis are the ones you never hear about because a resolution was found before the crisis became public.
A lot depends on the Company's objectives. Was it to break the strike or resolve it amicably? Depending upon its perspective, it may be better to negotiate behind closed doors. At least GM considered the social media option.
Of course, had the strike persisted, both sides may have changed their strategies. In particular, I could see three instances that may have lead GM to consider:
• If the UAW had successfully implemented a blogging campaign that put GM on the defensive.
• If GM had concluded that traditional media had limited their ability to communicate their position.
• Lastly and most importantly, if GM was forced to contend with negative reaction from its customers or the strike had severely compromised the customer experience or raised safety issues, and a public forum was needed to restore confidence or address customer concerns.
If such situations had arisen, I would have reconsidered my initial position with direct input from my legal and HR departments. I would only permit the official corporate blog to do the talking. Given the material nature of the negotiations, it would be unacceptable for unauthorized employees to make comments on their blogs. Following the advice of Erin Byrne, managing director of interactive over at Burson Marsteller, I would only consider responding to blogs that were open to a broad range of opinions that I had assessed for tone and content.
Generally speaking, I see social media as an important vehicle to address customer concerns and not a forum to bash the opposition. I will leave that to the folks waging political campaigns.
Let me get back to you.
Technorati Tags: GM; General Motors; UAW; United Auto Workers; Eric Dezenhall; Crisis Communications; Blogging;
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