The digital age has forever changed the way
organizations deal with crisis communication and reputation management,
especially where social media is involved. Social media opens companies up to
widespread praise and criticism, and it opens the doors to a myriad of
problems. How do strategic communicators deal with the challenges social media
presents? This isn’t an easy question to answer, but it can be done. Strategic
communicators can use a combination of traditional media and social media to
resolve company crises.
I’m sure you’ve seen how crises unfold across
different media outlets. In the past, crises like the Exxon
Valdez oil spill of 1989, were exposed and developed solely through
traditional media formats, like radio, television, and newspaper. However, in
today’s world, social media plays a major role in how people perceive companies
and how these companies react to what their audiences have to say about them. The
BP oil spill in 2010 is a
prime example of how social media has permanently changed how public relations
communicators must work to protect their brands. In my grad course this week,
we discussed this effect that social media has on crisis communication, and my
instructor posed two questions:
- What impact does social media have on public relations practices, particularly crisis communications and reputation management?
- How significant is it for organizations today to monitor content on social media sites, including hash tags and other signs of internal and external dialogue?
Social media can make or break an organization,
especially concerning crisis communications and reputation management. It
greatly contributes to the public relations practices because it requires
strategic communicators to factor in social media’s capability to build or destroy
a brand. In his dissertation titled “How Social Media is Changing Crisis
Communication: A Historical Analysis,” Daniel A. Landau (2011) writes, “An
integrated communication strategy that incorporates both traditional and social
media is important” (p. 62). In the past, companies only had to make sure that
they were able to get ahead of their crisis and make sure that they made a
statement before the crisis reached mass media. Now, in order for companies to
perform damage control, they must be able to maneuver across various digital
media outlets.
When companies make the effort to create an
online presence for their brands, they take a step in the right direction. Companies
that have previously established relationships with their stakeholders help
themselves in the end because these consumers will be more ready to vouch for
their favorite brands that they already have a connection to versus brands that
they are unfamiliar with (see screenshot below). While companies are planning a
strategic way to address their crises, social media users are way ahead of them
earnestly sharing their negative feelings and reactions to companies and their
products. Companies that already have their brands integrated into social media
outlets will be better able to deal with the challenges social media brings,
such as viral videos, memes, and tweets.
In the article, “Fight viral with viral: A case
study of Domino's Pizza's crisis communication strategies,” Cory Young and
Arhlene Flowers (2012) revealed how important it is for organizations to have
an online presence across all forms of media, namely social media. Domino’s
effort to quell the crisis with a video on its company website did nothing,
because the website wasn’t the source of the crisis—social media was (p.
100-101). Companies must have a great knowledge of how to use social media and
be able to use it strategically and timely to resolve crises and save their
reputations from lasting damage.
The Domino’s Pizza crisis involved two employees
who posted YouTube videos of them doing unsanitary and just plain disgusting
things to customers’ orders. (You can read about it here.)
This crisis showed how the advent of social media has changed the way
organizations must strategize during crises to save their companies reputation.
So, how did Domino’s fair during this crisis? Initially, they made matters
worse by not responding in a timely manner. The company didn’t even know that the
video existed until users on the at GoodAsYou.org alerted them to the prank
video (Young & Flowers, 2012, p. 95). After they found out about the video,
the company responded by posting a video to its company
website issuing an apology for the pranksters’ actions, but it received little
attention (Young & Flowers, 2012, p. 99). What the company failed to
realize was that they needed to use the same medium that the employees used—YouTube
(p. 99-100). Domino’s failed to analyze its audience, which caused them to
react ineffectively. Once they figured this out, they were able to reach their
audience with an effective PR statement and separate themselves from the employees
and their actions.
Diligence is key when dealing with a crisis,
especially one involved with social media. The Domino's crisis shows us how important
it is for companies to have a strong social media presence, because when
companies don’t incorporate social media into their operation strategies they
risk becoming involved in their own crises. I've seen how tweets, videos, and
memes become viral and cause irreparable damage to companies. The crisis
involving Lululemon's yoga pants is one example of how companies can fail to
use social media strategically. The company's former CEO, Chip Wilson, issued a statement that
quickly went viral because it did nothing but add injury to insult. Instead of
taking consumers’ complaints and trying to rectify the situation at hand, he
placed blame on the company’s customers. In his attempt to defend the company's
sheer yoga pants, Wilson made matters worse by "offer[ing] a foolish ad
lib in the interview" about the pants (Braud, 2013). In this case,
Lululemon Athletica failed to monitor what its CEO was going to say in this
interview, and because of this failure, the company faced a crisis that had
ballooned far beyond what it should have. So, what can strategic communicators
do to strengthen their crisis communications internally and externally?
In “5 Tips for Handling Negative Social Media
Comments on Facebook in Real-Time,” Chris Syme (2012) provides crisis
communicators five strategies for dealing with the challenges social media
presents:
- Make sure you have a posting policy visible.
- Filter the public posts and comments for the crisis at hand with the Manage Permissions tab.
- Be selective about liking positive posts.
- Be selective about deleting, hiding, and blocking.
- Let the people vent.
These five tips can help organizations
monitor the information online and, to some extent, control what people think
of their brands. It is very significant to a brand’s success or demise for
organizations to monitor content on social media sites. Our world is ever
evolving and becoming fully integrated into the digital realm, so it’s
important for companies to be able to keep up with the pace of this
integration. Being able to monitor social media, which can send anything viral
within minutes, is vital to a company’s success or failure. When organizations
keep a close eye on what goes on within the companies’ walls, they will be able
to circumvent any negative communications, like the one Domino’s had to deal
with, from ever reaching the outside (the consumers and social media users).
When they are able to exert some form of control
over what communications occur externally, they will be able to turn the
opinions of stakeholders in their favor. On Facebook, I've seen how some people
forget that they represent big companies and just "let it all hang
out." They may believe that their social media pages are their own to
customize, but they must also remember that their actions outside of their
companies can give their employers a bad reputation. My father, who was a
pastor (he passed away this year), always told us that our negative actions
outside of church would bring a reproach on the church, so always remember to
do that which is right. This same principle also applies to employees. When we
sign on for employment with organizations, we have to remember that we are
acting as ambassadors for these companies, and whatever we do, however
miniscule, may have some type of impact on our employers.
Crisis communicators have their work cut out for
them. While social media can act as a wrench in the PR machine, companies that use
it can employ it deftly and effectively to protect their brands. Because social
media provides “immediacy, ubiquity, and availability,” (Landau, 2011, p. 6),
companies should look at it as another tool in their arsenal of weapons for
crisis communication and reputation management (Young & Flowers, 2012, p. 96).
When they use social media this way, they will be able to head off any
troublesome posts, comments, videos, tweets, etc. immediately and save
themselves from the headache of trying to make sure they don’t lose valuable stakeholders
(consumers) and revenue. I leave you with this screenshot, which was taken from
Starbuck’s Facebook page (names have been censored):
References
Braud, Gerard. (2013,
November 14). “Did Lululemon's yoga-pants apology only fuel the brouhaha?” Ragan
Communications, Inc. Retrieved fromhttp://www.prdaily.com/crisiscommunications/Articles/Did_Lululemons_yogapants_apology_only_fuel_the_bro_15588.aspx
Landau, Daniel A. (2011,
May). “How Social Media is Changing Crisis Communication: A Historical Analysis.”
(Masters dissertation). Retrieved from http://www.danlandau.net/writing/sources/research/danlandau_thesis.pdf
Syme, Chris. (2012,
October 16). “5 Tips for Handling Negative Social Media
Comments on Facebook in Real-Time.” CKSyme Media Group. Retrieved from http://www.udmercy.edu/mpa/ecug/files/5%20Tips%20for%20Handling%20Negative%20Social%20Media%20Comments%20on%20Facebook.pdf
Young, C. L., &
Flowers, A. (2012). Fight viral with viral: A case study of Domino’s Pizza’s
crisis communication strategies. Case Studies in Strategic Communication, 1,
93-106. Retrieved from http://cssc.web.unc.edu/files/2013/01/art6.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment