Social Media, Brands and Your Reputation

If communicators are to be responsible professionals, we must acknowledge this: we have never been in less control of our brands. The voices outside of our organizations are too many and too loud, and their reach is too great. What we say about ourselves is often lost in a sea of social media, as Facebook friends opine about the latest news about our organizations, good or bad. Our reputations are formed from this myriad of public opinion, and when it differs from our brand, can overwhelm it.

I am sure this list is not comprehensive, but here are a few ways social media affect modern-day brand management in my opinion.

1. Public relations > advertising

The influence of advertising is decreasing relative to public relations. Your reputation has always been important, but your advertising once was the sole source or combined with word-of-mouth to shape a consumer’s opinion. Today, your voice is one of many, and rarely the most trusted, as friends and family share their opinions publicly as well. Your relationship with your audiences is more important than a slick 30-second tv spot.

2. It’s all public

The resolution of a situation involving a rogue employee or a poor customer interaction was once limited to the domain of interpersonal communication. A phone conversation or a meeting often closed the crisis. Today, though, that interaction or malfeasance can become a viral video or a Twitter trend, and involve an entire company in the response. And one act can damage a brand in ways it could not years ago.

3. Environmental scanning is more difficult

The minefields for the reputation manager are everywhere. Today’s communicator must keep an eye on message boards, social media, mass media, and more. And damage to your reputation can come at anytime in any forum. Quickly sensing danger (and quickly responding in the appropriate manner) is of critical importance.

4. What you stand for is as important as what you do

Cut down trees to produce your product? Affiliate yourself with a particular political candidate or issue? Be prepared for it to affect the bottom line. More and more consumers are aligning themselves with companies that reflect their beliefs and values. As communicators, we must adjust, communicating effectively our organization’s beliefs and values.

If we do, we will attract consumers who share those beliefs and values.

Think long-term during a crisis

The crisis hits. It is real. You must respond.

The overarching goals for the public relations professional are the often the same regardless of the crisis—craft the perfect response that will be honest, transparent, effective, and if possible, make the crisis “go away” as quickly as possible. The quicker the general public moves on, the quicker the organization can get back to fulfilling its primary mission—right?

Today, responding to crisis requires public relations professionals to think and act more quickly as a result of social media. Often, we must respond without a full grasp of the implications of our response. Often, we must respond without all of the details. Often, the result is that we fall into a trap of thinking and reacting moment by moment. I know because I’ve made that mistake.

Call me a fool, an irrational optimist, or something else altogether, but I’ve learned there is at least one important positive to a crisis—you are exposed to journalists and mass media outlets that you usually unsuccessfully beg for attention. You may be at the beginning of a long and good relationship—if you handle the situation well. That means being accommodating (a difficult task), being unafraid to answer tough questions (an even more difficult task), and above all else, keeping good contact information for future use.

My case in point is a situation two weeks after the “pep band incident” of 2012 at Southern Miss. I received a call from a national writer who wanted to follow up on the incident and “see what we learned.” You can imagine our initial reluctance. The crisis had largely passed, and even though we received some positive response for the University’s handling of the incident, media coverage for a week or so had been overwhelmingly critical of the young men and women involved. We relented though, and the result was a fair story that reminded people of the incident, but was also complimentary of the University’s response.

But I take particular pride in the work done in the months following that article. We kept in touch with the writer and continued to successfully pitch story ideas—the result to date has been two additional national stories that remind readers of great athletes at Southern Miss. We had not made the original story worse by our participation, and the subsequent stories would not have occurred had we resisted the initial inquiry, failed to keep contact with the writer, or not been thinking long-term.

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Despicable words by Southern Miss band members at NCAA tournament lead to ‘teachable moment’ – March 28, 2012

Legendary Raiders punter Ray Guy frustrated but resigned that he's not in Hall of Fame – Nov. 11, 2012

Read-option star QB Reggie Collier missed NFL stardom, but at peace after conquering addiction – Jan. 31, 2013