The ‘One-Day’ Story

There are still people out there who believe that one reason not to respond to a negative story or comment is because it’ll go away. “It’s just a one-day story,” a friend of mine was told. “It’ll blow over.”

At what point are executives going to understand that there’s no such thing as a one-day story any more. You can come back in two days, two months or two years, search on the company’s name and guess what’ll come up in the organic search results. Then, of course, we public relations people will be asked how we control these negative stories.

Out will come more well-optimized releases and Web entries to push down that bad story, but it won’t go away. A response, at least, would have softened it. It still would have been a “one-day story,” but with our response and information about our organization. The lesson here goes back well before social media: Never let someone else tell your story and never be quiet when someone tries to.

Are you still being told things are “one-day stories?” Do you ever tell anyone something is a “one-day story?” How do you respond when told that. Has anyone done any studies about how long these things hang out there? Would love to hear your experiences.