I just read this great article about Nestle’s recent Facebook debacle and absolutely loved it. The short version of the Facebook disaster is this: Greenpeace is mad at Nestle over palm oil and a bunch of their members began taking to Facebook to express their outrage. They covered the Nestle Facebook Fan Page with wall posts and changed their profile pictures to altered versions of the Nestle logo to further make their point. The moderator of  Nestle’s Facebook page became flustered by the outpouring of hatred, and responded in a manner that was just a little too human. Comments such as: “Thanks for the lesson in manners. Consider yourself embraced. But it’s our page, we set the rules” certainly didn’t win him/her any fans. This whole mess draws attention to what I think is one of the least talked about, but maybe most important, aspects of social media – the social media crisis plan. Clearly, Nestle had no such plan ready.

But with no plan laid out, how could the moderator know how to handle such a delicate and heated situation? On one hand, I completely understand the moderator’s response (and even secretly applaud it a little, although I wouldn’t have gone there myself). Anyone who has ran a Facebook Fan Page for a client and had to deal with people’s inappropriate/rude/harsh comments, can tell you they are hard to cope with. Many times I’ve had to curb the desire to respond to an overly zealous persons complaint with a “Hey this is a FAN page. If you aren’t a fan, feel free to leave” or a “now why don’t you just simmer down a bit.” But as the Nestle moderator learned, angry people don’t appreciate sarcasm or rudeness, so I’ve refrained.

The challenge for many companies is that when crisis does break out in a social media space, it seems like there is no correct response.  Just regurgitating the public press statement probably won’t win you any engagement awards. However Nestle’s “human” approach, didn’t have a positive effect either. So what’s the right answer?

I’ve found it varies per client, but there are a couple of tactics we employ most often.

1. Ignore it. “What??!” you ask? I’ve learned that, sometimes, there is no good way to respond and any response is only going to anger your critics more. Things will die down, probably sooner than you thought, and definitely sooner than if you tried to jump in and defend yourself. Plus, sometimes, when you keep yourself out of the conversation, your fans will jump in and start defending you. What’s better than that?

2. Thank people for their comments and let them know you heard their concerns. If it is something like this Nestle situation, where clearly there were no new answers that would appease the members of Greenpeace, it is pointless to just try and re-state your position. Instead, just thank them for their thoughts and wait for next week when they’ve moved onto something else.

3. Respond with humor. This will only work for certain situations but often times humor can diffuse a situation. People don’t expect it and it can help put everything in perspective. This one is risky though because you have to ensure that your humor doesn’t border on rude or sarcastic. As we’ve seen, that probably won’t be effective.

So what do you think about Nestle’s response? How would you have handled it better?