CPR is not what you think. I will get to that later.

Common sense tells us that the time to start monitoring a brand is long before the sushi hits the ventilator. But social media always blindsides us. It’s called a Brand Hijack for a good reason. Brand Hikacking, described as “the consumer‘s act of commandeering a brand from the marketing professionals and driving its evolution,” could be “the employee‘s act of commandeering” as well.

Interesting to see how Exxon Mobil will handle what appears to be an employee micro-blogging without been anointed by the PR and marketing department. Someone going as Janet has been sending Twitter updates, but the blogosphere, including Shel Holtz figured out it was not an official Exxon Mobil tweet.

Jeremiah Owyang has been in touch with Exxon Mobil, whose comments, as they seem to wrestle with way to handle this, are enlightening. Especially if you are doing top-down CPR (Communication/PR) in the organization. I am reminded of Alan Jenkin‘s observation that “The shelf life of any “tweet” is about 20 minutes. But tweets are carved in stone.”

The bottom line of course being the need constantly to monitor your brand in the blogosphere.

• Owyang, and Joseph Jaffee had some good monitoring advice, two years ago -pre Twitter.
• Mike Manuel last month listed six social media monitoring approaches.