The Sarah Palin/Gabrielle Gifford’s Publicity Connection

A lot of people were horrified to hear of Gifford being shot. Social media was buzzing with questions and updates and quickly came to the conclusion that Sarah Palin has somehow induced it. Many journalist wrote about her style of interview and how she had Democrats in ‘Crosshairs’ on her website. They felt it might be dangerous and many said so. Regardless of which side you fall on, Sarah Palin now has some bad publicity to deal with. Here are some of the things she could think about doing.

300px-Gov._Sarah_Palin_in_Dover_cropped_2,_NHIf you are in business long enough you will have to deal with some bad publicity. Everyone has unhappy customers. Some unhappy customers go to the press or put it on a website to complain. I personally have complained via the web about a company I was unhappy with.  You have to realize it is part of business. You can choose to let the bad publicity sit there. What will happen? Well, you cannot control the consequences. You might have a lot of potential customers turn away from you. You could open yourself up for other type of lawsuits because people see vulnerability. If you never clear it up, you will never know when it will come back. I never recommend ignoring bad publicity, especially in an emergency.

I do recommend being ready for these emergencies. You can do a lot of things to help mitigate the backlash. You can make sure only one spokes person from the company talks to media. Right now, as I write this article, Sarah Palin is advocating that people pray. Will it answer all her detractors? No, but it will make some people feel that she is concerned about the trend that is happening and her contribution to it. For a lot of people that is enough. After all, she did not force the man to pull the trigger.  Palin did have the courage to speak for herself and not allow a spokes person to speak for her during this tragic time. Having a spokes person speak for you when bad things are happening makes you look guilty. No matter how great the spokesperson is, the public will feel you are avoiding their gaze because of guilt.

In the face of bad publicity you can do a good deed. When the founder of Facebook realized that he seemed like a jerk, he made a huge philanthropic donation on Oprah so that people could see he was a good guy. After that he was named Time’s Man of the Year. Of course, it was not just because he gave the donation, but that helped!

Dr. Wright is the founder of PR Fairy HQ, a publicity site for business owners to learn how to get the publicity they deserve. You can get a free Los Angeles Media List when you visit www.prfairyhq.com