How Mayo Clinic handled an outcry on Facebook

While the “Facebook backlash” angle to the Cooks Source-vs.-Monica Gaudio tale has raged online for much of the past week, you just might have missed how another business used its social media experience and savvy to avoid a crisis of its own on the world’s largest social network.

Enter The Mayo Clinic. Under the stewardship of Lee Aase, the highly regarded Mayo has played a leading role among healthcare organizations in creating and sharing content through social channels since as far back as 2005.

That social media presence extends into its Facebook, where the clinic regularly posts updates on its official Page, including hundreds of photos and videos, while also answering questions from the public on its Wall and in discussion forums.

So when fans spoke out on the Wall en masse last week in the wake of purportedly racist remarks sent in an e-mail by one its doctors, radiologist Aivars Slucis, Mayo was in a credible position to respond.

Here’s how Mayo handled the firestorm on its Facebook Page:

• Made three posts to its Wall over two days acknowledging the story (see screenshot below), first by reinforcing its commitment to diversity and ultimately by saying it had spoken to the doctor and “[did] not condone” his comments.

• For a period of some 42 hours following the breaking of the Dr. Slucis story, allowed all relevant comments (see a few of them in the screenshot below) on the Wall to stand, provided they did not violate stated community guidelines on its Info tab. In all, more than 200 original posts came in from Likers, plus the related likes and comments to those posts.

• Ultimately redirected the Dr. Slucis conversation away from the Wall and into a specific discussion forum (see screenshot below).  The tactic enabled fans to continue to weigh in on the topic as needed, but allowed Mayo to recast its Wall as a spot for what it knows and does best: medical news and questions about treatment and care.

So if you’re looking for an example of how to manage an attack around or against your brand on Facebook, add this case study from the Mayo Clinic to your playbook.