The Peeple debacle: how not to respond during a crisis

Disgust and rancor continue to dog the unfolding social media horror story that is Peeple, the app that turns everyone into a walking slab of meat by allowing anyone to review anyone else using a five-star system in three categories: personal, professional and dating.

Three things leap out from this rating system:

1. We already have a professional rating app. It's called "LinkedIn." You're using it now. Why create another?
2. Previous boyfriends and girlfriends and ex-significant others are highly unlikely to rate you favourably. There's a reason you're not with that person anymore: it didn't work out, and probably not because things went slightly less than ok and you mutually and amicably decided to part company. The vast majority of relationships end (at least) because of mild incompatibility or (more often) as angry shouting matches, possibly involving threats of legal action and/or the other person taking their stuff and fleeing to their dad's house. It's likely such people will not look back fondly on your time together, and are thus unlikely to give you five stars on Peeple. Most likely they will dump on you. Thus we can establish the value and validity of Peeple's "dating" rating scheme.
3. This leaves the personal recommendations category. Assessing someone's character based on a five-start system is fraught with enough danger that its value is dubious at best; not completely valueless the way the "dating" scheme is, but dubious.

However, these points pale in comparison to the visceral disgust the denizens of the internets have expressed over the whole idea of rating someone like a cut of beef. This resulted in an outpouring of rage and sarcasm on the app's Facebook page:

Also:

The app page in question has since been taken down, but not before the owner (Julia Cordray) somewhat ingenuously asked if there was a way to prevent comments from being posted on a Facebook page post. You can guess what the answer to that is, based on the screen caps above.

Which brings me to the most valuable lessons to be learned from this debacle:

• Don't raise $7.6 million in venture capital for an app that's essentially an electronic version of a character from Heathers.
• Sometimes silence is the best action in a crisis.

Too often we feel a strong impetus do something, say something, ANYTHING, when a crisis hits. It's easy to feel helpless and chafe at the idea of doing nothing in these situations. But doing nothing may be precisely what's called for. This is where the brain trust behind Peeple made their biggest error: not shutting up. As an entrepreneur, Ms. Cordray is no doubt used to being very active and engaged: a "doer." Unfortunately, in this situation what was called for was a "not doer." By posting supposedly real email copy in a misguided attempt to shape / deflect conversation, Cordray merely added fuel to the fire. Chalk it up to hubris, naivete or simply a total lack of understanding of online conversation and public relations. Whatever the reason, Cordray couldn't understand that sometimes less is more, and that an entrepreneurial (active) approach to a non-entrepreneurial problem (public relations) is a bad idea. As tough as it probably would have been for her to do so, the best advice anyone could have given her (at least on her Facebook app page in the short term) was to shut up.

So what's a poor entrepreneur to do in these situations? The answer is twofold:

1. The best response to a crisis is preparation. 
2. Think twice, then respond.

Here are the verbose answers:

During a crisis

• Monitor social media for the volume, reach, sentiment and tone of conversation. Are there any key influencers weighing in? What's being said? Is the volume of conversation increasing or decreasing? Is sentiment going up or down? The answers to these question will help you decide what to do: for example, an issue that's going out on its own is best left alone: a response from you will only reignite it. You can monitor social media using dashboards such as Radian6, Sysomos Heartbeat and Hootsuite. Haven't got those set up and need to find out what's going on? Call your friendly neighbourhood PR company and beg for some immediate short-term help monitoring social media. It won't be cheap: highly skilled labour at your disposal at the drop of a hat never is. However, the alternative (not having a clue what's happening online during a crisis) is worse.
  Find out more about how to respond to a crisis through social media with this "how-to" guide.
• Have you / the company done something that requires an apology? If so, carefully draft one using plain English. Have the the PR department or a friend with a communications background look it over. Consider having the legal department or a lawyer read it over if you think you might be legally liable for something resulting from this crisis. Have the communications person look at it again (don't post legalese blindly) and then post it to your channels.
• Is there any significant misinformation that needs correction? Post the correction on the channels where it occurs. Don't correct insignificant information - you end up playing "Whack-a-mole" and expose yourself unnecessarily to criticism.
• Monitor your apology and / or corrections for responses.

Before crises have the opportunity to hit

Be proactive: consider building a community of advocates that can step up and defend you when when the brown stuff hits the fan. When a corporate entity defends itself online, it usually sounds weak and apologetic, because that's what everyone expects a company to do, and because the response lacks credibility and authenticity: of course a company's going to defend itself. Companies will defend their actions no matter what: if a company were found guilty of lighting nuns on fire and chasing them down the road, it would defend itself. However, companies defending themselves online do little to ameliorate the situation or change anyone's opinion, because people expect them to do that automatically. Thus corporate apologies are mostly pro forma, and don't change public opinion, because they lack sincerity and authenticity. They are, however, a necessary gesture to demonstrate some surface degree of humility, and to acknowledge the problem.

Unlike with corporate responses, unpaid third-party advocates bring a sincerity and an authenticity to online conversation that a company can't buy. If you invest in the relationships required to build a community of these folk, some of them (depending on how strong their relationship with you is) will step up and defend you. That's public relations gold, and much better than posting the text from emails.