All too often, we hear how a social media faux pas turned into a media and public relations debacle. This week we can be proud of an American company that took care of their customer’s concerns the right way and straight on.

Ford’s lawyers sent a letter to TheRangerStation.com, (a site dedicated to lovers of their small pick-up trucks), over copyright violations. This resulted in an uneasy frenzy by dozens of other fan sites, who also use the Ford branded names, worked up over their being asked to stop using their URL’s and site materials. When the story eventually appeared on major car blogs, it had come down to Ford’s lawyers asking for $5,000 or the site would be shut down.

The good… Scott Monty scottmonty on Twitter, Ford’s Head of Social Media ,was keeping an eye on these developments. Scott was using Twitter to following the brewing upset and quickly responded online. One of his posts was,

“I’m in active discussion wit hour legal dept. about resolving it. Pls retweet #ford”
(How awesome is that!!)

This let Ford fans — and other interested parties know that Monty was acting as the company’s open door into what was going on, for Ford’s corporate and legal team. He continued to Tweet as he received new information, and the situation was finally clarified.

As it turns out, the issue truly at hand was the site was being used to sell counterfit parts. In addition to posting on Twitter, Scott Monty very wisely used TheRangerStation’s own forum to get the word out. Not only was this very clearly in conjunction with the site to lock-down the forum, and keep the message straight and clear; it also was a brilliant way to earn the trust of the site and it’s followers, and even send them some traffic.

Here’s Ford’s official response to the “Fansite Cease & Decist Debacle”
http://is.gd/b3qd #ford Please retweet”

If you’re a firm not actively doing social media, consider that Twitter and blog posts can end up in the search results of your firm’s name. They can even rank high 0on the page depending on where and how a user searches for you. “Nipping these problems in the bud” Absolutely helps prevent bigger headaches; and as Monty’s response shows, it can even enhance you relation ship with fans and online influencers.

The question is, is your firm able to distinguish a fire while it’s smoldering or will you be caught in a 5-alarm blaze?