3 Dark Sides Of Social Media

If you have read my posts, you’ll probably know that I’m obsessed with social media (SM). In my defence, I’m not the only one: both practitioners and academics are lauding their potentials to directly manage relationships with stakeholders and realize the dream of an interactive two-way communication.

Like it or not, one thing is certain: you cannot ignore SM, especially if you work in communication. In fact, SM have imposed one of the biggest shift in society since the industrial revolution, and in order to survive, organizations need to embrace it.

     

                                              

However, as my colleague Naomi mentioned, SM imply also risks and negative implications. So let’s put away the enthusiasm for a moment, and let’s see why, in SM, all that glitter is not always gold.

The illusion of control

Imagine that you’re a PR of a huge company, that you have just launched a nice #hashtag for your campaign, to make people talk nicely about your brand. And that, instead, they use it to speak ill about your organization.

Just a nightmare? That’s actually the reality of many PR departments.

Once you post something on SM, you lose control over it.  Users from all over the world can do whatever they want with your contents, from a negative reply to a parody of your message. Practitioners have comprehended the loss of control over their contents and image building strategies, as they cannot predict what people are going to do or say on SM.

 An example of mocked content of Yves Saint Laurent campaign, referred to the Kate Moss’ drug scandal.

Retrieved from Pinterest

Moreover, the persistent memory of today’s technology makes impossible to escape our past or remake ourselves. Thus, don’t even think to go deleting that negative review or that tweet wrote in one go, or you’ll encounter the Streisand effect. That means that everyone will know that you tried to censor unfavourable information, and automatically you will remind to all stakeholders your previous failures.

Basically, a constant presence on SM means for organizations  being in the eye of an endless storm.

The security issue

Retrieved from Daily Mail

No worries, Obama is fine. That’s just an example of how easy is for hackers to take control over your profile on SM and do whatever they want with it. And that’s not a stand alone case: similar security problems have regarded also Ebay and Sony, the latter in more than one occasion. Even if not strictly related to SM only, the problem of security is one of the most impelling for organizations. In case of hacking, not only your image could be destroyed, but also the relationship with your stakeholders could be seriously affected, as they could reconsider your ability to have a reasonable level of security.

In a shell, never underestimate the security issue on SM.

Is the game worth the pain?

Retrieved from Unsplash

Let’s just admit it: no matter how hard you try and how entertaining you make your campaigns, public will understand your hidden agenda. Users are becoming aware of organizations’ undisclosed messages, and soon enough they will immunize themselves to our online communications. This means that, in an already over-polluted environment, practitioners must find newer and more creative ways to attract the audience.

There are also questionable practitioners who try to overcome this obstacle by faking comments or paying bloggers to obtain good publicity. Besides being risky, it is also highly damaging for the overall reputation of PR. Even if we are still figuring out how to use SM as organizations, violating ethical principles is an easy way to be labelled again as liars and phonies.

All in all, our job for the future will definitely concern finding new ways to engage our audience though SM, and that will be a tricky, yet exciting, job. 

Are there any other downsides of SM? Are you a lover or hater of SM?

Share your opinions, and comment and share this post!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cristina Canale

During the day, Corporate Communication master student from University of Amsterdam interested in social media, crisis communication and brand management.

At night, rock-n-roll fanatic with an insane passion for Italian food and Snapchat.

3 Lessons To Survive A Social-Media Crisis

As we discussed in the last post, social media (SM) can be a powerful tool to nurture a relationship with your stakeholders. However, SM can also turn into an incredible threat, especially when your worst nightmare occurs: your organization is involved in a crisis.

Since SM assure immediate access to real-time data, they can immediately spread an issue outside the organization’s control, thus increasing organizations’ vulnerability during a crisis.

By looking at the recent Starbucks’ case, here are for you three lessons that could save your life when the public wants your public execution. 

Starbucks #RaceTogether fiasco

Howard Schultz, Starbucks’ CEO, launched on March 2015 the #RaceTogether campaign, aimed to initiate a national dialogue about race. People were asked to discuss racial issues on SM, and baristas had to write the hashtag on customer’s cups to stimulate the conversation. 

A pretty nice effort, right? 

Let’s just say that it didn’t exactly went as Starbucks expected.

The initiative was immediately in the eye of the storm. As soon as the campaign started, countless critics started coming from SM, and eventually start spreading on news media as the New York Times and Rolling Stone.

Starbucks didn't exactly handle the situation in the best way; lucky for us, their mistakes can be a lesson for practitioners about what to absolutely avoid when facing a crisis. 

Prevention is the best cure

Source: unsplash

A crisis, by definition, is a sudden and unexpected event that can threaten your organization’s reputation. There are sometimes in which a storm appears from nowhere, and it takes time to take the punch. However, in this case, Starbucks was the one who initiated the conversation, so they could have been at least a bit more prepared for the negative reactions. 

If you are starting a new campaign, always be prepared to counter strike eventual backlashes. And don’t forget to continuously scan and monitor the online environment to catch crisis signals as early as possible and to be prepared to react quickly to let your voice be heard. 

Don’t commit social suicide

 Source: unsplash

As the tweets started targeting also Corey duBrowa, Starbucks PR executive, he reacted in the worst way possible: he shut down his Twitter account. 

And people, this is like the PR equivalent to the hara-kiri. 

During a crisis, managers should engage the on-going conversation, listen to stakeholder’s concerns and reply in a timely and appropriate manner. Hiding and hoping that the crisis will disappear by itself is not an option. If your organization fails to adequately communicate via SM, negative contents and rumours will start circulating, and stakeholders’ behavioural intentions and your reputation will be affected. 

Is it too late now to say sorry?

 Source: gettyimages

Starbucks did not back down and continued defending its campaign, until it disappeared from SM and cups. Sometimes, you just need to recognize that you were wrong and apologize to your public. Especially on SM, where a crisis can rapidly escalate and harm your organization’s reputation, a rebuilding strategy can be your best chance to win back your audience.    

What would you have done in Starbucks case? Are there any life-saving lessons that are worth sharing? Share and comment this post!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cristina Canale

During the day, Corporate Communication master student from University of Amsterdam interested in social media, crisis communication and brand management.

At night, rock-n-roll fanatic with an insane passion for Italian food and Snapchat.

4 Golden Rules To Rock Your Social Media Campaign

Social media (SM) are definitely changing the PR industry. In fact, their intrinsic characteristics (interactivity and relationship building) make them a winning formula to implement a two-way communication with the target audience. 

However, academics have shown that organizations and public relation professionals still underutilize SM capabilities, and are mostly using SM as a mean to disseminate one-way messages. So, how can practitioners trigger interaction, engagement and participation? Here are 4 golden rules to improve your SM strategy, based on the recent publications by Charest, Bouffard & Zajmovic (2016), Allagui & Breslow (2016) and Watkins (2016). 

1. Size actually matters

Did you know that, on average, consumers check their phones 40 times a day? The recent Global Mobile Consumer Trends report revealed also that 78% of global consumers own a smartphone, 9% own wearable devices, 54% own tablet and 7% own all three. Thus, when designing your content for SM, don’t forget to consider the diverse devices that will be used by your audience. SM are close to become an exclusively mobile experience, so you should optimize your contents for mobile displays by respecting the three major screen ratios 16:9, 4:3 and 3:2. 

 2. Be resourceful

Being resourceful, in the SM era, does not mean provide the audience with useful information. Instead, it refers to the number of platforms where you publish or share your contents. The more resourceful your campaign is, the more the audience will be engaged and willing to start a conversation. But, be careful: you should not just copy-paste your content across different SM. Each platform has its own personality, specific type of contents and audience. Remember that older millenials prefer text-based SM (Twitter), while younger generations, like Generation Z, lean towards image-heavy contents, which will be mostly posted and shared on Instagram and Snapchat. 

Not a digital savvy? Have a look on this Bulldog Reporter insight on how to mix&match different SM platforms.      

                                      

3. Carpe diem

Stay always updated about the current trends on SM. Be timely and strategic, and ride the wave of events as Oreo did during the blackout of the 2013 Super Bowl. Anticipate the most used hashtags, new styles and topics related to your business. It seems hard to do, but being a step ahead of your audience will help you maintain an engaged relationship. And, Your Social Sidekick is here to help: here you can find the month-by-month latest trends.

                                      

4. Influencers are your best friends

                          

An influencer is someone who actively participates in content and conversation on various platforms and provide added value to a connection, service or product on which (s)he have knowledge. Most practitioners are targeting influencer, but it seems that only a few integrate them in their SM strategies.  If you want to create a community around your organization, start using influencers: they could give you interesting insights on how adapt your contents to your audience’s needs. Still not convinced? Read this post on pros and cons of hiring influencer for your campaign. 


                                        

Do you have any other golden rules that are worth sharing? Comment and share this post!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 Cristina Canale

During the day, Corporate Communication master student from University of Amsterdam interested in social media, crisis communication and brand management. 

At night, rock-n-roll fanatic with an insane passion for Italian food and Snapchat.