There are ways that you can address this problem, but first you need to chill. Let your emotions wane so that you can address the issue with a clear head. Evaluate your position in the community. How long have you been a member? Are you a recent arrival, or have you been engaged in conversation for years? How about the other member? These distinctions matter and dictate the best course of action.

It’s never a good idea to take up the challenge. You will get sucked into a battle that you cannot win because it will polarize and alienate most members of the community regardless of who’s right. Don’t even acknowledge that a gauntlet has been thrown.

If you are a recent arrival, the best thing you can do is to let it go. You’re better off not responding at all than to engage the other party and risk an ugly scene. Some people tend to impose their hostility on communities where they feel they have nothing at stake. If you allow yourself to sucked into a flamewar with one of these individuals, you will lose credibility. The other member might have a reputation for being a hothead or a bigot but also a respected authority in good standing with the community. If you’re new, you wouldn’t know that. As the custodian of a brand, you have much more at risk than the other person. That’s why it’s best to let it go.

Assume you are a member in good standing with the community and the other member is new, that might also be a good time to sit back. Other senior members in the community will most likely come to your aid and interject themselves into the situation. You  might even appeal to one or two in private, asking them if they might intercede on your behalf. While this won’t work when you’ve newly joined a community, it’s a very effective way for established members to preserve the peace.

If you are both long time members of the community, then it’s likely that someone made a mistake. One of you said something and it came across much harsher than either of you intended. Your best action is a direct and graceful admittance that somehow you got off on the wrong foot and to offer an apology–regardless of whether you believe the other person was wrong or right. Again, you have more at risk, and a willingness to be diplomatic will improve your standing among the general community.

Conflict is a part of online conversation. At one time or another, it happens to everyone. But gentle humor, attention toward the community as a group, and diplomacy can guide you through any conflict without damage to your reputation or to your brand.

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I know it’s tempting when realizing that there is a huge audience on the other end of that wire attached to your keyboard to jump on the soapbox and tell everyone about your great brand, product, or service. Don’t bother. It doesn’t work. Standing in a crowd and shouting your message goes over about as well as a street corner evangelist in Harvard Square. Yeah, there’s a crowd, but they’re not listening. The first rule of marketing through social media: Don’t shout to the crowd.

There is something you can do. Observe and listen. Find the people who do command attention. In any social community, there is at least one magnetic personality to whom everyone’s ear is turned. This is the person you want to share your message with, and maybe they’ll pass that message along. The second rule of marketing through social media: Develop relationships with respected authorities.

Social media isn’t just the top tier blogs and forums that hold a million or more visitors. There are thousands upon thousands of niche blogs and forums where you can speak directly to the people who are most likely to have affinity for your products. This is obviously time consuming and it can be a full time job–even several full time jobs. The way to make it work is by understanding who is listening to whom. The greater share of bloggers pick up their information from other sources. They pick up the news, and feed it to their audience. On the other hand, if you reach too far up the chain, you dilute your message because each authority will add their own insight as the message comes to them. The third rule of marketing through social media: Find the sweet spot in the information chain.

You may know who the magnetic personalities are, and where they’re getting their information. If you do, congratulations. It takes quite a bit of work and persistence to figure that out for any given market. But your campaign is only successful if your message reaches the people you wanted to target in the first place. Your assumptions of how the information flows can be wrong, or your information might not be packaged in the right way. You won’t know this unless you monitor the social media network to see when and if your message is reaching your audience. The fourth rule of marketing through social media: Make sure the message you intended reaches the audience.

I’ve greatly oversimplified the process in this post, but my intention here is not to provide a marketing plan. Rather, it’s to stimulate thinking about how marketing through social media can work by identifying the hierarchy of information propagators and cultivating relationships that ensure reach without overextending your effort or your budget.

I welcome your comments, and I’m sure that not everyone agrees with my view so go ahead–express yourself!

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