Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! This week in class we are talking about brands and brand reputation. For this blog posting, I'm going to focus on how social media can destroy a brand's reputation.
Photo by Neil Patel
"Social media is the most immediate threat to your company's reputation," says Pete Knott, digital consultant at reputation management consultancy Lansons. 
Social media has the impact to shed positive light on brands that will have positively affect them but if it's not used correctly it has the same amount of power to destroy it. I believe that every brand/company should have a social media management strategy. By having one it will allow the brand to be able to hand potential challenges that could happen in the future. Over 72% of adults are connected to at least one social media set. Social media has taking marketing to a new realm, allowing brands to reach wider audiences instantly. Brands have always had to worry about negative publicity, but social media has made it easier for negative publicity to spread at a faster rate (go viral) and create permanent damage to a brand.
Brands must engage with their social media followers and answer their questions and concerns because not doing so can cause a bad look. Personally, I have seen numerous times on twitter, facebook, and Instagram where consumers have purchased a product that they have had problems with and they reach out to the company on social media. If the company doesn't respond it causes speculation from others on social meida nad the post begins to gain negative attention. Brands must have a social media management strategy to combat problems like this to escalate. Come on, I know you all have seen it with your own eyes too.
Brand reputation coincides with word-of-mouth marketing. Word of mouth marketing heavily relies on social media to drive sales, clicks, and tries for different companies and brands. Social media makes it easier for friends, family, and peers to ask one another for recommendations on specific places to eat, travel, brands to try and so much more. According to a study by Nielsen, 92% of consumers believe suggestions from friends and family, more than they do advertising. Word of mouth marketing allows micro information to spread immensely. This could be a positive or a negative for brands becuase if a consumer has had a negative experience then they won't want to recommend the brand or organization to their friends or family.
Social media has become prone to cancel culture and I have seen many consumers be "canceled" becuase of something negative that they did or allowed to happen. For example, growing up I loved to read Dr. Seuss books, but recently the Dr. Seuss franchise have become victims of cancel culture becuase six of their books for racial insensitivity. Other brands such as Aunt Jemima, Cream of Wheat, The Cleveland Indians and The Washington Redskins have all been apart of controversy on social media where consumers have threatened to stop supporting unless they changed something about their brand.
Social media is an extremely powerful entity that has the power to build and destroy brands. As a future strategic communicator I will make having a strategic social media plan a priority for every organization/brand a priority because I have seen how it can destroy a brand. Also, it is easy to tell when a brand doesn't have a plan for these type of problems becuase it either takes them a long time to respond or they never respond, which is never a good look. What do you all think? Is there something that I didn't touch on that you all would like to read about in the future? Let me know in the comments! See y'all online next week!
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