Sarah Fowler

Ted’s online marketing strategy is pretty simple. They started with a solid, easy-to-navigate website; added email, then Facebook. It is not an inordinately expensive campaign, nor do the Ted’s staff have much direct interaction with fans (such as Twitter or back-and-forth on Facebook). They’ve just set up a forum for people to share good things, and given away a few (in the long run, also fairly inexpensive) incentives along the way to get more people involved.

If you are not active in social media (especially Twitter), you are not set up to control your own message through a crisis. That’s a dangerous place to be.