As an ex-PR professional, Catharine P. Taylor marvels at social media’s role in the aftermath of Toyota’s recall debacle.

Taylor contrasts the old school PR approach, where declining to comment was an art form, with Toyota’s mad dash to confront customer questions and complaints on the web.  In “Toyota’s Crisis: Prism Into How Social Media Has Radicalized Public Relations,” she uncovers  two critical lessons. First, when a crisis hits, it’s vital to jump into the fray and confront every relevant social media outlet. For example, Toyota began a website called toyotaconversations.com (run by TweetMeme), specifically for the recent recall situation. That leads to the second point, which is providing a high degree of transparency. While Toyota is presenting some information in a fairly unvarnished way, all the tweets from “Toyota Conversations” are exclusively from the company and are essentially upbeat. However, Toyota’s Facebook page is set up to accommodate those looking for a more “social” conversation.

The SSN Take: Dump the bunker mentality during a crisis and apply social media liberally. For a successful recovery process, be transparent and come clean at the start!

David Hardt, March 21, 2010

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It’s never too late to let their business jump into the social media madness.

A recent Marketing Profs article “Small Biz Adoption of Social Media Doubles” uses statistics pulled from a Smith School of Business survey, they found twice as many small businesses used social media in 2009 compared to 2008. While over 50% of those polled felt social media was worth their time, 26% said it failed to meet expectations. An almost equal percentage of businesses claimed to have lost money as those who made a profit. So where is the big payoff for small businesses and social media?

The SSN take: Just like with grassroots marketing of years gone by, social media success favors those who work hard and think of something innovative to offer customers. Just like your business, its sink or swim. How will you react?

Patrick Roland, March 19, 2010

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As the buzz surrounding Twitter and other social media stars continues to intensify, email marketing has by default started to sound rather dull… until now.

In “Social Media, Video Become Email Marketing Staples For SMBs,” Benjamin Tomkins writes that “The lasting power of email is attributable to its powerful reach.” A study by Forrester Research reported that nearly 90% of Americans using the web utilize email as a “mainstream communication channel.” The  power of email combined with the rapid growth of video and social media has created a wealth of opportunities. The study also found that 80% of SMBs plan to use video email in 2010, compared with 90% using social media alongside email. In a survey studying email and video, GetResponse found that when the two marketing channels were combined, they “delivered close to a 100 percent increase in click through rates.”

The SSN Take: E-mail marketing is anything but dead. SMBs should explore ways to integrate video and social media conversations into their email marketing strategy.

David Hardt, March 19, 2010

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Identity theft and hacking are an ever present threat for any business working on the Web, and really, what businesses aren’t?

A recent CNET News article, “Woman says boyfriend kidnapped her Facebook page,” pokes a lot of fun at the victim in this story, but the underlying message is important to any individual or organization using social networking. A woman in New York is taking an ex-boyfriend to court for coercion and harassment due to his hacking of her Facebook profile and changing her status to make her look gay. This should have any business phoning their lawyers and getting the scoop on their rights. Since you can’t control the security of social media sites like your own company’s site, the chances for hacking are much higher.

The SSN Take: It is not a bad idea to learn what your legal rights are when a hacker is caught.

Patrick Roland, March 19, 2009

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