How to deal with social media fires

Leslie Mupeti

It has been an eventful week as far as brands are concerned. Hip Hop superstar and businessman Kanye West was deserted by international brands such as Adidas, Balenciaga and Def Jam for his controversial takes, while locally Nyaradzo group has been trending on social media for the wrong reasons.

Many people are expressing negative sentiment about Nyaradzo’s services regarding funeral policies. It has been a marketing and Public Relations (PR) nightmare, with the company’s responses on social media adding more fuel to the fire and infuriating more and more users. PR disasters like this can be a nightmare for brand builders, marketing and PR professionals. In this article I look at negative word of mouth (WOM), social media and putting out PR fires.

What is negative publicity?

In PR and marketing, there are three types of media. There is earned media, controlled media and paid media. Earned media is getting brand awareness without paying for advertisement, such as somebody recommending your service or product on social media and controlled media is media controlled by the brand including the messaging and placement of the content.

Negative publicity can rise at any time from any of these types of media. Negative publicity is defined as the uncompensated broadcasting of potentially detrimental information about a product, service, business unit, or individual through print or broadcast media or by word of mouth. It can be classified as either performance-related or values-related.

Performance-related negative publicity generally involves a firm’s functional qualities, such as product failure, while values-related negative publicity involves social or ethical issues, such as a CEO’s sexual harassment scandal.

Another classification of negative publicity is via the cause which can be internal or external. Negative publicity caused by internal reasons often includes a product defect or marketing of a company’s products. In general, bad publicity with an internal cause is directly correlated with managerial access and control. On the other hand, when the negative publicity is caused by reasons outside the firm, bad publicity is usually negatively correlated with managerial access and control.

Because the media prefers to publish bad news, negative occurrences receive far more coverage than positive ones. Recent research has demonstrated that negative information has a stronger effect on customer sentiments than good information. Thus, it is important for companies to quickly respond to negative publicity in order to protect their reputation.

A valuable resource which is lost during negative publicity is trust. This makes recovering consumer trust immediately and effectively the top priority for companies that have been negatively publicised.
The influence of Social media on negative publicity

Simply put, communicating via social media has become a cultural phenomenon. Numerous consumers are gravitating toward social media, and it has become the new word of mouth (WOM). Like WOM, businesses cannot control the conversation on social media.

The best they can do is try to influence it through these forums. There is an inherent tension that exists as businesses and consumers participate in social media.

Unlike more traditional types of marketing communication (TV and radio), marketers have less control over the message on social media because it is conversational in nature and similar to WOM.

Because of the Internet and the rise of social media, marketing is no longer a one-way communication channel from business to customer but a two-way communication flow between the business and communities of consumers that increasingly wield more power over the message.

Social media requires a different type of marketing, where the consumer is in control. Because businesses no longer completely control the marketing message, they must become skilled at influencing the message without losing the authenticity of the message.

Negative social media communication produced by consumers can be viral and can spread quickly, damaging a company’s brand in a short amount of time. This is because the negative message is quickly broadcast to wider communities of consumers, leveraging the network and exponentially spreading the negative message.

With traditional communication models, marketers create the message and communicate the message to a mass audience of consumers through traditional media such as television, radio, and direct mail.

There is little to no bi-directionality to the communication, as the business creates and controls the message. With this model, potential consumer response is delayed and limited in scope.

Dealing with social media negative publicity

It is very important for brands to have a crisis communication policy in place and to be the first point of reference should your brand trend for the wrong reasons. There are 5 general strategies to deal with negative publicity on social media. These strategies include: delay, respond, partner, sue, and control.

Delay

A delay strategy is based on the idea that if a company delays the response, the negative social media campaign will die down on its own, allowing the company to not respond or ignore the customer complaint altogether.

A delay strategy gives the company time to review the complaints and develop a thorough response to the issue. Thus, in certain circumstances, companies can delay their response to the negative social media campaign, and it may put out on its own. Two Domino’s employees shared a video exposing unhygienic and disgusting food handling methods in a shop in 2009.

Dominos took a ‘‘wait and see’’ strategy, failing to address the mounting outrage about the negative social media campaign that erupted in response to this film. Within twenty-four hours, the video had over a million views on YouTube, with 5,000 comments (mainly unfavorable); negative debates were also spreading on Twitter; and various references to the video began to appear within Google search.

Domino’s Pizza’s brand image suffered immediately as the corporation took its time to respond. Two days following the video, company president Patrick Doyle reacted with an apology.

The brand was already damaged. Although delay or ignore appears to be a less viable option in today’s socially-mediated world, there are reasons that companies may choose to adopt this strategy.

For example, ignoring a negative attack prevents management from engaging in a tug-of-war with consumers insulting their brand image. Similarly, a poorly crafted response can be even more damaging than a lack of response. Dell experienced this when its response to a negative blog garnered more negative publicity than the original post.

Ignoring the criticism can, in certain cases, shorten the duration of the negative publicity. Larger news stories may shift attention away from the negative social media publicity.

Furthermore, if the company’s clients are not strong users of social media, a ‘‘do nothing’’ strategy may be effective. However, as social media grows in popularity, having a client base that is unaffected by social media is becoming less likely over time.

A disadvantage of the delay strategy is the ensuing belief that a business is being unresponsive and unwilling to listen to consumers.

When businesses are unresponsive or slow to respond, they are perceived as uncaring, aloof, or guilty of the complaints for which they are being accused.

This happened to Toyota when the company ignored Prius owners who began reporting problems with brakes through owner networks and messaging boards. At times, delaying a response can even make the situation worse.

United Airlines experienced this when the company tried to ignore the complaints of professional musician Dave Carroll. After repeated attempts to get compensation for his destroyed guitar with no response, Carroll posted his complaint on YouTube.

These postings went viral which aired the complaint to a wider audience of consumers and forced United to respond.

Respond

The response strategy involves listening to, acknowledging, and potentially addressing the negative feedback generated via social media. There are various levels of response that companies can take from replying to individual complaints to taking significant action because of pressure from large communities of consumers.

Moreover, there are cases where a negative social media campaign went viral and had the potential to negatively damage a company’s brand to the point that the firm felt the best course of action was to retract or change the business decision that spurred the complaints.

Such was the case for Bank of America and Verizon Wireless when they announced a fee change for various services.

These cases involved not just listening and acknowledging the consumer, but went one step further, involving a reversal in a course of action on behalf of the company. Toyota also used the response option to salvage its brand identity.

In 2010, Toyota recalled 2,3 million vehicles because of faulty accelerator pads. Such a recall was particularly devastating to a company whose reputation was built on quality.

The social media team at Toyota decided to address the issue via Digg.com. Consumers were allowed to address questions to Jim Lentz, president of Toyota’s North American sales operations.

This response format provided transparency and authenticity, which is important in social media.

Although Toyota’s brand equity is not back to its level before the negative publicity, the company’s social media response was viewed in a positive light and YouGov’s BrandIndex indicates a continued increase in positive consumer perceptions of the brand.

A company also can use the response option to address trivial matters that gain traction via social media.

Actively participating in the conversation provides the company with the opportunity to soothe the hype, influence the conversation, and quell commercial rumours. Simply put, because of the real time communication available with consumers who are on social media, another advantage to the response strategy is the opportunity to correct inaccurate information.

Despite the advantages of utilising the response strategy, there are also significant disadvantages to using this strategy. A major disadvantage with the response strategy is the potential disagreement that can occur with a consumer, especially if the negative attack is based on incorrect information or a wrong perception. In these instances, the marketer must be careful to advocate for the brand without angering an entire community of consumers who see the message and are now misinformed as well.

Another disadvantage of the response strategy is that it requires the company to know the appropriate time of response. Not all negative consumer feedback is created equal. Social media is based on individualised messages, similar to personal selling and word of mouth.

Companies that utilise the response strategy must become skilled at recognising the negative social media campaigns that need to be addressed as they will potentially become viral, while not legitimising the more minute complaints from unreasonable consumers who can never be satisfied, despite the response from the company.

Partner

A partner strategy is one of relationship or association. With the partner strategy, the company opts to partner with consumers in the marketplace, treating them like pseudo-employees, creating a constructive and committed relationship.

With this strategy, the company becomes united with an outside spokesperson (i.e., the consumer who is a brand advocate) who assists in promoting, managing, and/or defending the brand message. Coca Cola has effectively utilised the partner strategy.

In today’s social media environment, more companies are creating company pages on Facebook.

Coca Cola’s page is extremely popular, and the brand has become one of the most popular brands on Facebook. Interestingly, the Facebook page was not created by the company but by two fans, Dusty Sorg and Michael Jedrzejewski, from Los Angeles.

Once the fan page base grew to over one million fans, Facebook asked Coca Cola to take over the page, stating that the page violates Facebook rules and should be run by the company, not fans. Coca Cola’s marketing team decided a better approach was to assign a team of people to help the creators, Sorg and Jedrzejewski, maintain the site.

At first, the two were invited to tour Coca-Cola facilities and given access to much of Coca-Cola’s brand information, and now the two work for Coca Cola on a freelance basis. With this strategy, Coca Cola has built an effective partnership with consumers, enabling the company to influence its online reputation, while at the same time, allowing the consumer to maintain control over the social media message.

There are disadvantages, however, to using a partnership strategy. While partnering with fans can increase a company’s authenticity and transparency, there is a fine line which a company cannot cross and overstep within a community.

According to Wendy Clark, senior vice president of integrated marketing at Coca Cola, “The minute we overstep in that community and try to push our message and not celebrate the message of the community, our disconnects shoot up. You have to co-create, participate, and honour the community” Furthermore, with a partnership, the company is giving up control.

Coca Cola has principles by which they would like for their online spokespeople to follow, but has limited recourse if these principles are not followed.

If there is fallout between the company and their partner, the partner has insider knowledge about the company and is embedded in the company’s message, which gives the partner a great deal of power to do damage if he/she is dissatisfied with the company.

Further, if the partner does not clearly disclose its affiliation with the company, consumers could view marketing messaging as misleading.

Legal action

A legal action is when one party files a lawsuit against another. In the case of social media, legal action might be brought by either the firm or a customer. Because social media is a new phenomena, there is little legal precedence concerning it. Currently, the majority of social media cases include defamation.

Other lawsuits involve harassment and threats, privacy breaches, ownership of social media content, and company valuation. The case of Phonedog.com vs former employee Noah Kravitz, brought in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, is a good example of legal action.

Noah Kravitz worked for Phonedog.com, a firm that not only evaluates and sells phones but also has a large blog component to its website. During his stay at the organisation, Noah created a Twitter account under his own name, which swelled to 17,000 followers.

Kravitz utilised this Twitter account to advertise Phonedog’s services, resulting in more exposure for the firm. When Kravitz resigned as employee in 2010, Phonedog agreed to let him maintain his account in exchange for tweeting about the firm on a regular basis.

Kravitz updated his Twitter profile after departing but retained his followers. Phonedog claimed in the complaint that the Twitter list was a customer list and part of the intellectual property of the company.

In a social media libel lawsuit, property management company Horizon Realty sued Amanda Bonnen for $50,000 in response to a Tweet about one of their Chicago apartments. Bonnen posted statements about a moldy apartment which Horizon claims is not true. According to Horizon’s Jeffrey Michael, “The statements are obviously false, and it’s our intention to prove that’’.

While there are benefits to taking legal action, there are also downsides to adopting this strategy. Via legal means, it is possible for a company to legally clear its name.

There are also potential punitive damages a company could seek from consumers who may have acted inappropriately. However, taking legal action can also lead to additional public relations catastrophes, where communities of consumers advocate for the individual consumer, further impacting negative perceptions of the brand.

In other words, when these lawsuits are promoted in the popular press, public opinion may fall on the side of the individual, as the company is seen as bullying the consumer.

Censorship

Censorship involves removing or suppressing unwanted information via the social media forum. To consumers, censorship is associated with a lack of authenticity or transparency. To companies, censorship is associated with protection of the company brand image from a negative social media attack.

It is this tension between consumers and businesses that makes this strategy a tricky one to implement. Nestle is a company that attempted to use censorship to address a negative social media campaign. In early 2010, environmental activists used social media to attack Nestle over its purchases of palm oil for use in its Kit Kat bars.

Protestors said Nestlé’s supplier of the palm oil was an Indonesian company known to have cleared rainforest to establish palm plantations.

The social media attack included negative videos on YouTube, derogatory postings on the Facebook fan page, and negative Twitter posts.

The negative videos included a mock Kit Kat commercial on the Web showing an office worker opening a Kit Kat and snacking on a bloody orangutan finger. Nestle replied that it had already stopped purchasing from the firm, that it was looking for more environmentally conscious suppliers, and that the amount supplied from the firm was only a small fraction of the palm oil used by Nestle.

As part of its strategy, Nestle asked Google’s YouTube video site to remove the mock commercial under copyright infringement rules. YouTube pulled the video, but it continued to spread on the Web.

Nestle also notified Facebook users it would delete any postings that included an altered version of the Kit Kat logo with the brand’s name changed to “Killer.” According to social media experts, these actions by Nestle incited consumers, and the fan base continued to grow with mostly protestors.

By attempting to censor, Nestle appeared hostile and sarcastic toward consumers and the brand image was badly damaged.

Leslie Mupeti is a graphic designer and brand strategist. He can be contacted for feedback on [email protected] or +263 785 324 230. His Twitter and Facebook is @lesmupeti