Quirks of managing issues on social media

© Yash Gooly via Pixabay

Numerous questions arise around the handling of reputational issues - specifically on social media. The big question is always: “what are the rules and are they different to ‘real-time’ reputational or issues management?”

The answer is that the principles of issues management remain constant. They do not fundamentally change. It is the level of responsiveness, nature and tone of engagement that must adapt to the channel. In this respect – there are a few variables – not all of them obvious and I will post some thoughts on those shortly.

But this post is simply about a few unexpected quirks that I have observed in social media audiences, based on the past few years of watching South Africans engage on popular channels. These observations are particularly true on issues of social impact such as the recent protests at universities or emotive issues such as the quality of food at fast food outlets.

Quirk One:

The nature of social media fuels conspiracy theories.

When Joe Social (including myself) reads a newspaper, we are inclined to apply a number of filters to judge the credibility of what we are reading i.e. which publication, who wrote the story, are they quoting official/expert sources, etc. When we read a story on social media, we’ll ‘share’ just because it seems interesting or because we think to ourselves, “Hey, there’s no smoke without fire…let me share and see what other people think, etc.”

It empowers us to share a story and feeds into the burgeoning Citizen Activist identity.

This means that for organisations experiencing reputational damage, when engaging with the amorphous Citizen Activist, old defence strategies such as questioning the credibility of the source doesn’t work. Two issues management principles that do apply are:

• Hear and engage with the emotion of what is being said and not just the fact. Acknowledging the emotion indicates responsiveness and authenticity. Dealing solely with facts – where ‘fact’ is not the primary driver – only fuels conspiracy theories.
  
• As with traditional issues, transparency is the best line of defence.

Quirk Two:

Relate-ability trumps credibility (for the most part…)

Simply put - we follow people whose views and even identity we relate to. This usually means that we don’t go out of our way to share/follow/like people whose views oppose our own. In general, our thinking is: “I don’t really know who this guy is, but he’s saying things I like – so I’ll follow him.” This creates a cycle of reinforcing our own viewpoint rather than actively seeking diverse or authoritative views – unless we go out of our way to break the cycle.

What does this mean for managing reputation? Good issues management aims to offer depth of perspective. This is also true for social media. But relate-ability, especially on highly emotional issues, is a more critical factor than in traditional issues management. This was amply demonstrated by the social media outcry, many emotive posts and prayers offered for Harambe – the gorilla who was shot when a child fell into its enclosure. At the point of being shot, Harambe had not tried to hurt the child and therefore was an innocent victim. Protestations by the zoo that they could not wait for a tranquiliser to work and even commentary from animal behaviour experts (whilst a sound basic strategy), did not gain half as much resonance against the social furore, as mothers who simply asked: “if it were your child in the hands of a gorilla, notwithstanding that you should have been more careful, would you have wanted the zoo to wait?” It is a dynamic that could only exist on social media i.e. one citizen speaking to another. It had more impact than any behavioural expert could achieve.

Quirk Three:

Virtual opinion is an amplification of “real” opinion.

Note: be cautious as this is issue-dependent and if the issue is close-to-home, the vitriol online could be an accurate reflection of how stakeholders feel.

However, the nature of social media means that we are often casual in our commentary and interaction. This is why the risk of reputational damage is so great. A throw-away comment becomes a firestorm. It also means that there is usually more passion, more aggression, more bias and more even skewing of views when people engage on an issue. Our online commentary is not always the most reflective input and what we project we will do, may not match our real-time behaviour. It is important to understand this dynamic in judging how the issue is escalating. But it is also important to understand that engaging with people offline may be critical to how we manage an issue online.