How to Win an Online Fight
My basketball coach once told the team, âIf you leave the game with no fouls, you arenât playing hard enough. If you foul out, you are a jerk.â The same holds true for using social media as a platform for corporate communications. Sometimes you need to play rough. Not dirty, but rough. The trick is determining when to throw that elbow and, once you let it go, how to make sure you donât get ejected.
Yea, yea, yea ⊠we all know that avoiding conflict is the best way to âwinâ a fight. But winning and ânot losingâ are not synonymous.  While this rule is wise most of the time, it fails to account for the rare instances when taking a battle public is a strategic business decision. After all, sometimes its the communications person's job to smoke the dragon out of its cave. Here are some of those times:  an influencer is sabotaging your business via backchannel conversations; a competitor has gone public with deceptive information about its business (or yours); another companyâs messages are undermining your entire industry. I am sure there are more, but these are the most common â and defensible â justifications to take your fight to the social Web.
(One word of caution: bloggers. If someone blogs critically about your company, the smartest response is taking the high road. Public arguments between corporations and bloggers seldom net out in the companyâs favor. Remember: Gulliver found himself on his back, strapped down by hordes of Lilliputians.)
If you are going to throw one punch, youâd better be prepared to throw two. After all, people that are hit tend to hit back. So before strapping on your gloves, you need to take a personal inventory (of yourself and your executive team). Can you take a punch? Do you have the stomach for a public conflict? Know that fights tend to bring out the worst in people, so you need to be prepared not only for your opponent to counterattack, but also for observers â even those you may have considered allies â to either criticize your tactics or support the opposition. It will happen. So if your business is going through a sensitive period (e.g., talking to investors or negotiating a major contract), it may be best to sit this one out. An online dust-up could derail business progress.Â
Step Three: Devise a Three-Pronged Game Plan
While the outcome of an online argument is unpredictable, one thing is certain: You canât win an alone. In fact, if you are the only one fighting, you have already lost. To come out on top, you need a game plan for three audiences: (1) yourself (your argument must be sound, reasonable, and not whiney), (2) outsiders (you need to induce the public to back you, online arguments tend to a âhe with the most supporters winsâ game) , (3) the opponent (the fastest way to end the skirmish is for your opponent to overreact or respond plaintively or defensively, so set traps in your attack).
Step Four: Hit Hard (But Not Too Hard)
The fastest way to lose a public dispute is for the audience to turn against you. Fighting dirty or alienating others is a sure-fire way to become the villain. Conversely, you donât want to bring a knife to a gunfight. If you are going to do battle, you have to come properly armed. So whereâs the balance? The answer can be found where all male-authored business clichĂ©s can be found: baseball.
 The most dominant pitchers donât necessarily play strictly âwithin the rules,â but rather âwithin bounds.â That is, if retaliation is required, they may hit another batter with a pitch (âoutside of the rulesâ), but somewhere reasonably safe, like the thigh (âwithin boundsâ). If they respond by throwing at a batterâs head (âout of boundsâ), then the entire crowd â umpires, fans, players on other teams, even some of their own teammates â will turn against them.Â
Of course, whatâs considered âwithin boundsâ for one industry might be way âout of boundsâ for another. So I cannot offer specific advice when it comes to actual tactics. Just be sure to know your industry, audience, opponent and â most of all â yourself before striking.Â