“On average, companies can expect to lose about $4.3 million in global sales because of social media mistakes…” – searchenginejournal.com
With today’s widespread availability of technology with the general public, audiences do not wait until a publishing house to print / broadcast to them to know the latest news. Social media use has been on the rise-steadily. UNESCO estimates that social media users doubled from 2.3 billion in 2016, to 4.2 billion in 2021.
These platforms give immediate and first hand access to the audiences on the latest happenings which traditional media institutions are (often) not able to match. As a result, social media have been ‘worked’ as a major conduit of news dissemination and even brand building.
When it comes to news publishing, social media worked its wonders-until the fake news culture arrived. Interestingly, despite the threat of fake news, more and more audiences continued to use social media for news, making it a significant channel of information-and misinformation.
“82 percent of adults aged 18 and above now consume news online – significantly more than the 64 percent who say they watch news content on television.. Overall, 56 percent of respondents in the Digital News survey say that they use social media to access news content…”-Simon Kemp – DIGITAL 2021 July Global Statshot Report
Large numbers of consumers continue to turn to social media for their news requirements. Still, they admit that they do not have much trust in social media based news.
“..However, people have significantly lower levels of trust in the news content that they find via social channels, compared to news in other kinds of media. Overall, 44% say that they feel they can “trust most news content most of the time”, but positive sentiment falls to roughly half that figure (24 percent) when it comes to news content in social media. So, while social media continues to play an important role in people’s news habits, it’s critical to remember that social media environments may have a negative impact on news credibility. As a result, marketers and publishers may want to think carefully about how they use social channels to promote and distribute news content, especially if that content relates to potentially sensitive or contentious topics..”- DIGITAL 2021 July Global Statshot Report
Facebook, the leading social media platform, has become the sole vehicle of marketing, promotion and business for many brands today. For example, the Direct to Customer (DTC) brands, who do not use middleman, use FB heavily and reap huge benefits. Customers of DTC too find that the middlemen gone, they are able to avail products at much lower costs.
Even other popular brands such as Microsoft, Nike and Taco Bell leverage social media significantly. Social media have paved the way for new openings for brands to reach the customers “directly.” Meanwhile, as we saw above, despite their popularity, significant level of mistrust among the public on social media persists. Given such mistrust while being attractive promotional platforms, how should brands go about placing their news content on social media?
With the proliferation of fake news, brands that moved forward to leverage social media to their advantage faced a fresh challenge. They were compelled to seek Reputation Management strategies to overcome online brand damage.
In 2012, McDonald’s began #McDstories, a new hashtag campaign to introduce to “the public to some of the farmers who provide the company with food items to make their products.” Within hours, people began using the same hashtag in tweets that were not so friendly towards McDonald’s. “One Time I walked into McDonald’s and I could smell Type II Diabetes floating in the air and I threw up #McDstories” wrote one customer. Tweeted another: “And by Pride, do you mean “eyeballs and ammonia”? Yeah, people can taste it all right. #McDstories”.
McDonald’s withdrew the tweet at its earliest but the brand damage was already done. There are countless more similar brand disasters in social media that are well known.
What is the overall cost of such crashes?
According to searchenginejournal.com, on average, companies can expect to lose about $4.3 million in global sales because of social media mistakes.
Is that all?
“…But that’s not all: research from Altimeter has shown social media crises are on the rise, year after year..”- searchenginejournal.com
The growing risk for online reputation management is such, a new sub industry has been taking root; “Online Reputation Management Service Market.”
The Global Online Reputation Management Services Market size was estimated at USD 239.99 million in 2021. It is expected to reach USD 276.59 million in 2022. (E-Services Market Trends of reportlinker.com).
This market provides such services as Review management services, Brand mention tools and software that measures customers’ online experience and feelings when they engage with the brand online.
With the high speed of social media user growth, and a growth estimate of USD 567.63 million by 2027 of Online Reputation Management Service Market, this segment only stands to grow further in its importance within the universe of brands.
