Invite. Engage. Inoculate.

In a post at his blog, Scott Monty highlights this video, in which the Wall Street Journal's Carol Hymowitz interviews Nathan Bennett, a professor of management at the Georgia Institute of Technology, on how companies should respond when they receive negative online feedback.

Bennett calls the most straightforward solution an Invite and Engage Strategy. This entails giving customers and employees a forum where they can air their grievances, be heard and reach a resolution. "That works," says Bennett. "But, unfortunately, that's reactive." You can lessen complaints from happening in the first place with the Inoculation Approach, in which he says "a company endeavors to put in place the sorts of systems that prevent the injustices that lead to disgruntled employees and customers."

But you can't please everyone all of the time. Question is: should companies use their CEO bloggers to respond? "It may be that it's a good strategy to try and take control of the way your company is represented in cyberspace," he says. "At the same time … I'm reminded of the surveys that are done that show time after time that most people are more likely, sometimes by a margin of three-to-one, to trust what they hear from people like them over words that they hear from people who are in authority positions, like an executive." So, in-the-trenches bloggers from various levels of your company might be an even more valuable element of your online efforts.

Addressing online criticism in front of a large audience doesn't have to be a disaster; if you do it right, you might actually impress the people watching it unfold. And that's Marketing Inspiration.

More Inspiration:
Paul Barsch: What Is the Future of Marketing?
Matt Dickman: Twitter: Making Sure You Don't Miss the Conversation
Jeanne Bliss: You Call This an Apology?

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