The Pause Button and the Elephant

The recent #qantasluxury Twitter debacle is a classic social media stuff-up.

Here at PUSH, we often work with clients on what is often referred to as PR 2.0. It’s a dark art that is never straightforward.

As an example, we have been working with a client in the past few weeks who was the subject of a particularly nasty social media campaign. As things turned out, a competitor brewed up the trouble. It’s surprising how often that happens.

Looking back, the most important advice we gave our client was about the value of the pause button. We were able to convince them to hold fire at strategic points in the counter insurgency, as we like to call it.

Like many things in this crazy social media world, it seems counter-intuitive. Conventional wisdom is that one needs to react to negative comments quickly. In their case, we counselled them to pause and let the ball roll a little further.

As things turned out, we saw the issue begin to turn on itself. The protagonists began to turn on each other. We call it the Monty Python effect. It’s the Popular People’s Front of Judea versus the People’s Popular Front of Judea.

The other bit of strategic advice we gave was that they must not dismiss the elephant in the room. While the agenda that started the fire was suss, it was based on some truth.

So, we helped them pick the right time to enter the conversation with a firm appreciation of the issue and the concerns of the individuals involved. They pointed directly to the elephant in the room and engaged in an authentic way.

And that is where Qantas went wrong. They needed to press pause on any promotions so soon after the grounding of their fleet. And they needed to face up to the elephant in their room – they had pissed off most of Australia.

It’s a classic case study on how complex social media engagement can be and why you need to be very careful at every step.