"Often times not playing into it is the way to go," Burack said. Freitas added, "Just like you A/B test creative, A/B test brand safety, and understand how much of it is actually delivering negative impact to your brand and how much of it is a perceived impact."
No. 2: Stay true to your customer—not the trolls
Social media mobs have existed as long as the platforms on which they speak their minds have, but all three marketers mentioned that it's important to take a close look at who is actually causing the negativity.
"Your reaction has to come out of looking at who was reacting," Palau said. "Is it a bunch of people with free time on their hands and 200 followers?"
If it is, it's probably OK to ignore them. "There will always be those people who are complaining, but if those people aren't your core customer, then you have to put that off to the side and stay true to who you are," Burack said.
She gave the example of a partnership Boxed did with P&G to discount NFL gear. The partnership happened to coincide with the controversy over NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. She said the company got a lot of comments expressing outrage, as well as threats to stop using Boxed. But after everything settled down, her team did an analysis of who the people complaining were. They found that the partnership was actually very successful among some of Boxed's best customers, and generated a lot of sales and positive engagement. "If we had pulled out, we would have lost out," she said.
Freitas underscored her point: "It's about understanding who your audience is, and what your core offering is."
No. 3: Stop talking and start taking action
People venting on Twitter will always be a constant factor in social media, but for brands the time has come to stop merely siding with one team or the other, and actually start taking action.
"People are going to start calling out companies for just talking and not having actions to back it up," Burack said.
If a brand wants to take a stand on an issue, it needs to have concrete actions or policies to point to when asked or confronted.
"I do see a lot of good in the world, but it doesn't get a lot of clicks, and it doesn't get a lot of advertising dollars," Palau said.
Taking time to share a positive story and make a positive impact with tangible actions can counter any negativity much more effectively than just taking a verbal stand.
"You either need to do something about it or stop talking about it," Burack said.
No. 4: The hysteria won't last
As Burack pointed out, Twitter and other platforms that are available for anyone and everyone to speak their mind are relatively new, in the grand scheme of things.
Freitas added to this, saying, "As with every new technology and transformation in society, things have a peak of hysteria, and then they will stabilize."
And it turns out the crisis might not be so much of a crisis after all—or if it is, it doesn't need to be. Perrin asked Burack, Palau and Freitas to give a number on a scale of 1 to 10, rating how concerned their internal marketing teams are about brand safety. Unsurprisingly to Perrin, their responses were 2, 3, and 1, respectively.