UPDATE: Amy’s posted to Facebook claiming their account was hacked…several days after the rants began…and deleted the posts.

Buzzfeed called it “the most epic meltdown on Facebook ever.”

And it’s hard to argue.

Chef Gordon Ramsay had enough of Amy’s Baking Company

Short Version: Amy’s Baking Company was featured on an episode of FOX’s “Kitchen Nightmares” show. Appropriately titled, obviously. The kitchen, staff and owners were so bad, the host, Chef Gordon Ramsay, shut down production and left the restaurant.

Clips of the episode are available on Eater.com here.

They then went completely off the chain on social media, virtually confronting all of the “haters” with…uhh…hate. And lots of it.

The Huffington Post has the blow-by-blow here.

As you can see, the vitriol was in plain sight.

How can Amy’s Baking Company save face? And even turn this situation into a victory?

1. Apologize

As a business, you can’t antagonize customers without expecting them to leave without paying…without ever coming back. The first step to recovery is issuing a public apology to the customers they’ve wronged over the years. No ifs, buts or excuses.

2. Space Donation

Donate the restaurant space once a week during hours they are normally closed to a local Scottsdale anger management group.

Seriously.

The restaurant, once a den of anger, can become a zone of zen.

3. Redesign, Reimagine and Reopen

Like a snake sheds their skin, the restaurant needs to evolve.

As painful as it may be, they should take advantage of Ramsay’s advice to condense the menu. Then give the space a physical facelift – not because it’s ugly, but because they need to change the energy in the space.

A grand reopening signifies a break from the past.

4. Corporate Social Responsibility

Finally, they need to develop – QUICKLY – a corporate social responsibility program that ties their restaurant to one or more worthwhile charities.

Simply, it gives them something upbeat to talk about in the media and through their digital platforms.

I suggest a $500,000 initiative where a small percentage of profits gets sliced into an escrow account until they’ve collected a cool half-million to split between a few pre-announced charities.

It would drive traffic and convince jilted customers to give the restaurant another try.

What else do you suggest Amy’s Baking Company should do to restore their image?

I am not a Belieber.

I do respect the Kid’s accomplishments, but he does not appear on my iPod.

Justin Bieber has come under fire recently for writing in the guest book at the Anne Frank house that he hoped Anne would have been a Belieber.

So what?

As a Jew and a PR practitioner, not only do I not find this remark offensive, I think the backlash is unwarranted.

The fact is that Anne Frank was a teenager obsessed with Hollywood. She had posters of movie stars. Is it THAT offensive to say that if she was a teenager in 2013 she would likely enjoy Justin bieber’s music?

Was his message self-obsessed? Yes.

Was his message controversial? I guess so.

But the fact remains that Justin Bieber has a target audience of teenage girls. And saying he hoped a teenage girl from any era would be a fan of his music is hardly a crime. Honestly, it’s not even a big deal.

What is a big deal is that Bieber went to Anne Frank’s house, which will inspire millions of people to learn her story of hope and strength.

Perspective: The real, true tragedy is that Anne Frank will never get to tell us exactly what she thinks of Justin Bieber’s music.

Good content is hard as hell to find. 

You can find content anywhere. But the good, good stuff isn’t easy.

That’s one of the main reasons I love Triberr.

Led by Dan Cristo and Dino Dogan, the platform, among many other features, excels at matching you with quality content around important topics…or “tribes.”

Following and publishing to relevant tribes in the digital/marketing area gives me a constantly-updated virtual newspaper of industry news and insight.

Obviously, I highly recommend it, but that’s not what I want to talk about today.

Something bad happened to their website on Tuesday.

It crashed and messed up everything.

For a website with social networking functionality and a content exploration mission, this is real, real, real bad.

So they put a post on their blog alerting their users about the outage, explaining in detail what happened and what they were doing to fix it.

Thumbs-up for how they handled it, right?

Well, just wait.

While problems persisted (and, as of this writing, continue to persist), the team has updated the blog now TEN times.

TEN updates in a day and a half.

You want transparency? These blog updates outline what the problems are and how they are going about fixing them.

As a user of their site, I now have an immense appreciation for what goes into the site working every day. I may not understand every update, but my appreciation is through the roof.

I applaud Dan, Dino and their team with being completely open about what’s causing the downtime. That level of transparency breeds trust with their audience. The comments on their updated blog post speak to how impressed their users are.

And now I can’t wait for the platform to be back up and running soon.

They turned a potential crisis into a major win.

In 2010, I wrote one of my favorite blog posts ever: Communicate Like A Pro Wrestler.

Paul Bearer and The Urn

From Hulk Hogan to Ric Flair to the Ultimate Warrior, I loved linking professional wrestling (a passion) to public relations (my profession).

One of the tips included in the piece was to find the right spokesperson.

The example given was the incredible Paul Bearer, the ghoulish, ghastly mortician who served as the mouthpiece for The Undertaker, one of the most unique wrestlers of all time.

When you have a character who is a virtual zombie, like ‘Taker, the more he talks, the more the mystique dissolves. So pairing him with Bearer amplified his presence. Bearer carried around a golden urn, which reportedly contained the “power of the Undertaker.”

So, you’ve got a silent grave-digging, cold-blooded dead man following around a rotund man in a suit and pale makeup carrying ashes.

Ah, can’t forget this detail: Bearer, in the early days, carried around body bags. After victories, The Undertaker would shove his opponent in it and zip it shut.

While, to some, it comes across as cartoonish, to the target audience of young boys, it was frightening (until he started beating up bad guys, at which point it was awesome).

William Moody, the man who portrayed Paul Bearer, passed away on Tuesday night, leaving behind children and grandchildren, along with legions of fans.

Looking back on his body of word as Paul Bearer (get the name?), one can see a perfect analogy to the power of a spokesman.

Someone that speaks for you should be able to communicate clearly.

Someone that speaks for you should have a presence, but not BE the presence.

Someone that speaks for you should know when to slip to the background and give you the stage.

Someone that speaks for you should provide sage counsel and guidance, a strategic plan.

Today is a sad day. A man is gone, but it’s clear that the iconic character…the publicist…he perfected will live forever.

As The Undertaker says to close out his interviews: Rest…in………..peace.

“It’s not Dave’s Health, it’s Men’s Health.”

Those words from third-generation publishing mogul Maria Rodale describing the nature of the high-profile magazine’s split from high-profile editor David Zinczenko in November 2012, while cold, are also true.

Zinczenko was synonymous with the Men’s Health brand, writing countless books (thank him for the “Eat This, Not That” series), appearing on major TV outlets (he regularly popped up on Today”) and had an active social media presence talking about the magazine’s core topics.

All of these things, one would assume, would be a good thing.

He used his position of authority to gain the greatest exposure possible for his publication.

This is something that comes up often in social media circles – does having a large personal presence make you a better online marketer?

In an industry of influence, how important is it to be personally influential?

Of course, there is no natural answer here, since influence is such an individualized trait. Two people with the exact same number of friends, fans and followers will exert completely different levels of persuasion over their actions.

But, there is a clear lesson here:

Know thy masters.

It’s clear that Rodale did not appreciate one person being as big (or even bigger) than the brand she was paying him to steward.

Without a doubt, the company was uncomfortable with the attention Zinczenko earned, no matter how altruistic or beneficial the pursuit may have been.

Brands are bigger than people. Unless those people are the CEO.

Think Richard Branson, Donald Trump, Mark Cuban – all three are arguably bigger than their brands. But all are at the top.

So many marketing professionals try to solve the personal brand equation.

Public Personal Brand = [Attributes + Content + Distribution + Relative Influence] – Employer Tolerance

Digging into the equation:

Attributes: Who are you, publicly? What aspects of your personality are known?

Content: What do you say or write?

Distribution: How do people know about what you say or write?

Relative Influence: Do people listen to you? Take action?

Employer Tolerance: Some companies don’t tolerate personal branding – everything should be brand-centric. Others see the positives that come from high-profile employees, within reason.

What other components should be added to this equation? Have you clashed with an employer about your social media presence?

One of the most important messages from the recent xPotomac conference came in the opening keynote. 

Vanessa Fox, founder of Nine By Blue, stressed that the future of digital search is tied to the ability to break people’s habits.

Case in point: Google is a habit. It’s synonymous with online search. Hell, it’s even in the dictionary!

Yahoo, Bing and the rest all lag behind. Far behind.

As marketers, our job is to disrupt habits (or positively reinforce habits…we can be a very confusing sort) to get more attention, clicks, downloads, purchases, traffic, etc., for our clients.

One of my favorite “disruption” quotes comes from the classic movie “They Live,” where the main character, played by “Rowdy” Roddy Piper interrupts an alien invasion (just go with it) by saying, “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubblegum.”

There is no doubt that he is all business and has every intention of getting his way.

You, too, can kick ass in marketing (bubblegum chewing optional).

3 Keys to Disruption in Marketing

1. Be Bold.

It’s hard to make a statement if you’re talking to yourself in the corner. Think about Lady Gaga. Does she do ANYTHING without giving it 100% (even if it’s 100% insanity)? No. Meat dresses, intoxicating hooks, undying passion for her fans. Nothing she does feels hidden…and you can’t NOT pay attention to her.

2. Be Opportunistic.

In 2008, coming out of a TV writer’s strike and entering a painful recession, one product saw explosive sales: The Snuggie. With TV ad costs falling, a low-budget two-minute commercial for the Snuggie was seen at rates well above the usual infomercial fare. The result? 4 million units sold in six months.

3. Be Different.

You can’t disrupt the status quo by just being bold and opportunistic. You must present some measure of uniqueness. If you don’t, you’re just a copycat. Netflix, for example, greatly disrupted the video rental industry. The catch wasn’t that the content they had (at least at first) was all that different than what Blockbuster or Hollywood Video presented. The difference was that instead of you going to them, they would come to you. World changed.

What else can you do to disrupt people’s purchasing and usage habits?