A Playbook for Negotiators in the Social Media Era

Social media has changed how business interacts with the public, governments, and each other, but negotiation strategies rarely take it into account. If they do, they tend to treat it as a liability. Both ignore a huge opportunity, and one that might not be ignored by your counterpart. Social media enables companies to learn much more about counterparts (and other potentially interested parties) than can be gained from traditional in-person querying, and it gives them new tools to influence key stakeholders, mobilize supporters, and neutralize opposition tactics. The power of using — or failing to use — these levers can be seen in Amazon’s HQ2 defeat in New York City, where activists swarmed key decision makers and pushed them to reject a deal with Amazon. While this was happening Amazon’s negotiating team was secluded, and failed to respond to the online threat — an oversight that contributed to the ultimate defeat of the deal.