Taxes

Sorry, but when did we get to the point where the tax code was going to cause the downfall of the U.S. if we don’t make changes in the next, roughly, 48 hours?

I find it amusing that people have been riled up by those who have peddled the idea that their taxes are now sky-high because of the stimulus package that’s been passed. Along with this these “grass-roots advocates” seem to have been told that their democratic representation has been completely stipped away. To my knowledge 1) Taxes on the middle class have not been raised and 2) The citizenry can still vote out of office a representative they feel is not conveying their interests.

Just because your side got voted out of power and has decided to actually ask people to pay for the programs they’d like the government to provide, that’s no reason to protest.

And hey, if you think the stimulus is costing too much, let me know what you think letting the national infrastructure fall into disrepair, letting two out of three car companies fail and letting the network of small businesses the economy is built on fall apart would cost.

There’s a difference

After mulling this over for the last couple of days I’ve decided that the story of a handful of Domino’s Pizza employees posting a video of them adding disgusting ingredients to pizzas (which they say were never actually delivered to customers) to YouTube is not actually a social media marketing story. It’s a human resources story.

Why?

We’re not dealing with customers opening their cardboard pizza boxes, finding snot on their pepperoni and subsequently posting pictures of it on Flickr and details on their discovery to Twitter. THAT would have been a social media marketing issue since it involves the customer experience and is spread via first hand accounts.

This, though, is about employee mis-behavior. All the company needs to say is that the employees have been fired and that it’s reviewing on-the-job behavior guidelines with all employees. It doesn’t need to respond to every blog post about the video. It doesn’t need to go into panic mode. Announce the offensive employees have been let go and be done with it.

Not everything that happens via social media tools requires a social media-based response. Sometimes the best course of action when you find your brand under fire is to catch your breath and consider what the core issue is and respond accordingly. That might be through social media channels – they certainly do increase the reach of your message – or it might be through the traditional media. But know what sort of issue you’re responding to first and you’ll be in a much better position.