Let’s give them something to talk about (as long as it’s good for my brand!)

Jaëlle-Laurence Günther

The rapid and exponential growth of social media has led brands to rethink their communication in a total different way. Media such as Facebook or Twitter uncovered a huge innovation for public relations as they allow the consumers to be involved and engaged in the conversation. Whether it be through, likes, shares, posts of retweets, anyone can now take part in any discussion. As demonstrated by Marit in her blog post “Let’s give them something to talk about; how to use PR in an interactive way.”, the way a brand nowadays engages with the public on online platforms can be decisive for a brand or product’s success, image and prosperity.

Social Media Engagement

In order to analyze this new form of communication, Olsson and Eriksson (2016) describe three strategies a brand or company can adopt to engage with its public on social media.

·The push strategy, which operates by addressing the public in a direct way, without the use of traditional media. This strategy aims at strengthening the public image of the brand or company.

·The push and pull strategy, which aims at keeping the public informed by engaging them as being the eyes and ears of the company. With this strategy, the public feels like it is part of the company and it thus willing to help out.

·The networking strategy, which aims at improving the relationships between the public and a company or brand.

The Apple example given by Marit is a perfect illustration of the push and pull strategy. Apple uses social media to engage its public and to encourage them to become advocates of the brand. This strategy is a very smart one as Apple uses its loyal public to vouch for their products and to promote their image.

Listen to the blue bird

In their research about who drives a crisis, Sung and Hwang (2014), found that Twitter is the most-used media platform to report on a crisis. This finding is very important as it emphasizes the importance of online personal media during a crisis. The authors also found that online personal media such as Twitter and blogs were often the sources of news and mass media. Social media have therefore drastically changed the media landscape as they are now often  the first source in the event of a communicational crisis.

Keeping its public engaged and loyal by preserving a two-way communication has thus become one of the most important tasks for a brand. In the events of a crisis, companies are often tempted to favor unidirectional communication and to ignore the engagement of the public in order to protect their economic interest. This is demonstrated by Ihlen and Levenshus (2017) who argue that companies communicate in a unidirectional manner and that their interactions with stakeholders is just aimed at securing the company’s image and

economic prosperity. Proceeding in this manner thus goes against the ethical principles identified by Jin,Pang and Smith (2018) in their article about the role of public relations in crisis communication ethics. Embracing transparency and keeping the public interest in mind are key to ethical communication. Just because social media offer a less formal space for expression, does not mean that ethical values can be thrown out the window.

Modern age eavesdropping 

https://flic.kr/p/QJseA6

More recently, Apple faced backlash from a FaceTime bug. In January 2019, it appeared that people were allowed to hear you and your surroundings even if you did not pick up your FaceTime call. This huge privacy invasion caused an outburst of Apple consumers on social media. A major flaw in Apple’s response is that they failed to engage with their public on social media. Indeed, some users had been trying to alert the company about the problem for several days using Facebook and Twitter. With their lack of reaction and their long response time, the brand only increased the customers’ worries. Most importantly, Apple let its customers down by not interacting with them on social media and by not being transparent about the actions that were being undertaken to fix the problem. When they finally released a statement addressing the problem and apologizing, Apple was trying to reassure its customers but they had unfortunately already lost the trust of many of them.

Demonstration of the Facetime Bug https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI2za9p95r0

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About the author: Jaëlle-Laurence Günther is a master student at the University of Amsterdam where she is pursuing studies in the field of Entertainment Communication. Her wish to later work as a manager or PR manager in the music industry has sparked her interest in public relations, more specifically in public communication during a time of crisis. 

Interested in this topic? 

Olsson, E-K. & Eriksson, M. (2016) The logic of public organizations' social media use: Toward a theory of 'social mediatization'. Public Relations Inquiry 5(2), 187-204.DOI: 10.1177/2046147X16654454

Ihlen, O & Levenshus, A. (2017) Panacea, placebo or prudence: Perspectives and constraints for corporate dialogue. Public Relations Inquiry 6(3), p. 219-232.

Sung, M., & Hwang, J.-S. (2014). Who drives a crisis? The diffusion of an issue through social networks. Computers in Human Behavior, 36, 246–257. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.03.063

Jin, Y., Pang, A., & Smith, J. (2018). Crisis communication and ethics: the role of public relations. Journal of Business Strategy, 39(1), 43–52. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBS-09-2016-0095