Handling online criticism - another resource
04:29, 27 January 2009
.. Posted in Communication, Outreach and General Mngmt.. Link
Back in June of 2006, I wrote a web page on my site about Handling Online Criticism, and I've updated it frequently since then as more people have written about the topic and offered case studies.
Thanks to the TechSoup blog -- specifically, a post by Elliot Harmon, who found this via a post by David Meerman Scott, here's another resource to add to my own: Captain David Faggard, Chief of Emerging Technology, US Air Force, who says that he wants to foster an environment in which all enlisted personnel are equipped to engage in online discussions about the US Air Force -- that's a 330,000-member communications team.
But Faggard's efforts aren't just to train his staff to be reactive: Captain Faggard writes The Official Blog of the U.S. Air Force; has pages on YouTube, MySpace and Facebook; uses Twitter; helps publicize a Second Life area called Huffman Prairie; contributes to iReport (user name USAFPA); and is on Friendfeed, Digg, Delicious, Slashdot,Newsvine, and Reddit.
Ofcourse, nonprofits don't have the resources of the US Air Force, and most could never engage in all of the above online activities - maybe not even most of them. But, absolutely, all staff at nonprofit organizations should be equipped to engage in discussions, online or offline, about their organization, and should know how to handle online criticism (and how to let the organization know such is happening).
Have a look at this Air Force Web Posting Response Assessment flow chart in PDF and think about how you can adapt it for your own organization. And definitely read more about Captain Faggard's efforts and think about how you can adapt them to your own organization.
