I’ve been meaning for a while to post about an exchange I witnessed on Mumbrella earlier this month, which shows that as easy as it is to do social media marketing badly, it’s just as easy to recover.

Tim Burrowes posted this on his popular Aussie media and marketing blog, Mumbrella:

(Excuse Tim’s French!) And provided damning evidence and a somewhat hollow sign-off wishing King of Shaves good luck in the competition:

Ouch! The fear of a Burrowes bashing lurks in the heart of most Australian marketers and this post would have had many looking into one-way flights to Siberia.  The commenters were quick to chime in with “What a terrible way to run a social media campaign” and even casting aspersions on the product itself, claiming “It’s hopeless at reaching the top of your philtrum.”

Pretty soon the subject of the twitstorm-in-a-tea-cup, King of Shaves CEO Paul Irwin, posted this:

And after the sledging he received he managed to be polite, funny and civil. He addressed all the issues raised, apologised for his Twitter inexperience, explained his spammy activity and even gave tips on effective philtrum defoliation! All it took was to be honest, upfront, social – in other words, human – and sentiment changed immediately. Comments poured in congratulating Paul on his great response and Paul hung around, offering free trials of his product and chatting to all involved, positive and negative posters alike.

This prompted yet more interest, with social media types tweeting the comment thread and attracting even more readers. I’ll leave the last word to MAtt: