The single most important piece of advice I can give about online PR to anyone working in the world of communications is that it’s not rocket science.

 

The vast majority of problems – or ‘social media fails’ as they’re often misdiagnosed (a particular bugbear of mine since most of the examples that people roll out, like Eurostar’s sluggishness or Paperchase’s plagiarism, are actually a result of broken internal processes or customer service) – are a product of a lack of common sense.

These online furores can drain a non-adopter’s willingness to test the water. They confirm the doubters’ worst fear, that the social realm contains tripwires and dangers all of its own. In reality, it’s just social media exposing common-or-garden real-world flaws.

 

And yet, the constant hype from the agency world often makes it seem so much more complex than it is in real life. Sure, there’s often a lot to be said for getting some structured advice from a well-respected agency. But to those pointing to an endless source of theoretical blog posts, or looking to perfect a diagram to explain one process or another instead of producing results, shame on you.

 

Besides, it’s often these supposed ‘experts’ that make the worst, and most obvious, mistakes. This month, for instance, I sat on a train and listened to two agency bods discussing their client’s downfalls. Now, if I were to divulge said information, this might possibly be a far more outrageous column, but I won’t.

 

It’s not the first time it’s happened to me though. In fact, I’ve heard the same people, on the same route, talking about the same company. At the same volume.

To me, keeping the intimate details of your relationships with brands under lock and key is ‘how to run a business’ 101. Loose lips sink ships, and they can also scuttle brands.

 

 

Yet as a result of this conversation I know the brand name in question, the head of social media’s email address (a shocking thing to have read out to a colleague in a busy carriage), the agency contact I’d need – plus the opinion of the team on why said client “would never truly hit its targets, not in the next three years at least”.

There are two things to consider here. Tempting as it may be to name and shame the agency involved, I personally think it’s just crude to share that kind of information online with the explicit aim of getting people into trouble.

 

But what if I’d been a competitor? A disgruntled employee? A customer with a mischievous streak? Anyone with a reasonable gripe or motive?

Without naming any names, I raised the subject on Twitter and expressed my frustration and disbelief as to why people still talk so openly on public transport. It seems I’m not alone. I received a huge – and immediate – response. Breaching client confidence in so casual a way is such a stupid and avoidable mistake to make, and nowadays there are so many simple steps to take to make it a very public one.

 

And what’s more, it’s all very well listening to a fancy presentation from an agency on how they ‘understand the new rules of conversing online’, but if their employees can’t apply the same standards in the real world and get their heads around the basics of protecting both their own – and a brand’s – reputation offline, I’d think twice about trusting them full stop.