Yes, social media can be an outlet for rogue or inappropriate tweets or posts that can cause a crisis, but it is also essential for monitoring potential crises and for communicating with audiences in good times, and bad.
Online conversations about a brand never cease (during good times if the is brand lucky; certainly during bad times) and a crisis can strike at any time and spread virally, causing untold damage to an organization’s reputation.
That's why it's alarming that a substantial number of executives fail to consider social media reputation, an area of valuable customer views and insights, when making business decisions. According to the Zeno Group's Digital Readiness Survey, compiled in Dec. 2012, more than one-third of executives surveyed said the CEO of their company does not care or cares little about the company’s reputation on social media.
There were stark differences between B2C and B2B companies, as well as large and small firms, in both CEO attitudes toward social media and in the company’s ability to respond to an online challenge. Here’s what Zeno found:
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B2B companies lag their B2C counterparts—their CEOs are less likely to consider social media in decision-making, they are slower to engage in a crisis, and they are twice as likely to refuse to engage online audiences at all.
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The bigger the company, the more likely that the CEO will consider social media in their decision-making. In fact, 43% of smaller firms said their executives rarely or never consider social media reputation.
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Smaller does not necessarily mean more nimble in social media. A fast response to an online crisis is more likely in larger companies.
Here's an infographic with the following information:
Source: Zeno Group
Follow Bill Miltenberg: @bmiltenberg