Getting swoll/swelled

I read the groundswell article today on my phone. It's a concept I've seen before and I've talked about it a bit with my friends before. In working on my website recently, my partners and I had discussed viral videos and how they can garner the attention of millions of people in just a few days. One little breakthrough, and you've instantly got way more publicity than you every could have had through a consistent marketing campaign. The trick is obviously building something that can go viral.

But what interested me more was how a company could weather the storm of a negative groundswell. I don't think a company will ever come away unscathed but there has to be a better way of handling this. But if there was, would we really even know about it? Obviously the famously bad ones get the most publicity. It's a stretch but I think Charlie Sheen's recent meltdown could be a good case study. All of these actors/athletes/politicians are selling some form of a brand.  Rep. Weiner probably didn't handle this situation very well, and perhaps some of them are so bad that they can't be handled, but I have to say that Charlie made out pretty well. So many people attempt to duck-dive the wave or swim through it but instead Charlie hopped on his board and enjoyed the ride. The waves of public opinion can be overwhelming and most of the time they're going to crush you, but fighting it certainly isn't going to help. Now take away the analogies and I don't know how to surf through a public opinion catastrophe, and Charlie probably isn't the best role model for companies. But there might be some lessons to be learned (deep down in there somewhere) from his handling of the groundswell.