Social Media and Public Trust in Business

Oct 8, 2011
Manu Priya

Social Media Crisis - Panic - Opera

Effective crisis management has seen a phenomenal change in the digital age. Today, public trust in business is influenced mainly by social media.

It’s no wrong to rephrase the simile “as brittle as glass” to “as brittle as trust.” Yes, once lost, it is extremely difficult to regain trust. Unassailable and unfathomable trust is not only the foundation for personal relationships but also for business relationships. Public trust is one of the key factors for successful businesses across the globe.

Social media is the buzz in the world of technology for the past few years. And the three darlings of social media — Facebook, Twitter and YouTube keep companies in “red alert,” with the power of a single post, a single tweet and a single video. In today’s world, one can see businesses made and ruined, personal brands built and defamed, all because of the so called ‘social media power’.

Social Media Effect in Loss of Public Trust in Business

Here are a few short and sweet stories on how social media drastically affected brand reputation —

In the spring of 2008, Dave Carrol and his band flew in the United Airlines. Dave’s acoustic guitar broke due to mishandling by baggage handlers. United Airlines finally denied compensation that Dave had been claiming for nine months. Frustrated Dave created and posted a comedic YouTube video named United Breaks Guitars. The video went viral and got a phenomenal 3 million views in ten days. It was such a horrible nightmare for United and it offered to “pay the cost of repairing his guitar and flight vouchers worth $1,200 (£700) but he told the airline to donate the sum to charity.” Lucky Dave got his career soar to great heights after the viral smash. Read more on bigbreaksolutions.

Nestle faced a big social media crisis when Greenpeace reported on the company’s indirect involvement in deforestation of Indonesian rain forests and pushing Oran-gutan monkey species to extinction. Greenpeace posted a YouTube video named 'Have a Break' that got millions of views within a short time span. Nestle raised pressure on Greenpeace to remove the video, claiming that the video violated their trademark. This further triggered the anger of Greenpeace, which prompted its members to post negative comments on Nestle Facebook page. Read more on the Nestle brand flub in social media.

Next is the Dominos social media crisis, which happened in April 2009. Consumerist.com posted a video of two Domino’s employees who contaminated the customers’ pizza orders, as they played pranks in a happy mood. There was a considerable delay in response from Dominos, which posted an apology Youtube video a little late when the brand reputation was already ruined. Realizing that the damage to the brand happened mainly on Twitter, Dominos immediately opened a Twitter account. Domino’s stock price dipped around 10% following the crisis. Read about Domino’s Case Study and other corporate crises.

Brilliant Twitter Campaigns to Build Public Trust in Business

Top brands of the world make an effective use of Twitter to offer real-time responses to the public. Such brands successfully manage to build a high degree of trust among customers. Here are classic instances of how successful brands promptly respond to customer queries and concerns on Twitter:

#1 JetBlue Airlines

Passenger: “Yet another @jetblue flight delayed. Won’t be flying them again.”
JetBlue: “Sorry for the delay! We can send you an update if you’d like to DM your flight number…”

#2 Whole Foods Market

Consumer: @wholefoods I’ve been trying to reach out, but no return calls. I’m trying to buy your used fryer grease to make biofuel.
WholeFoods: Sorry you haven’t heard from anyone…….have you tried reaching out to a local store?
Consumer: Yes, I’ve been told that everything is handled at a corporate level.
WholeFoods: We’re completely decentralized, and stores operated at the regional level……sorry they gave you incorrect info.

#3 Ford Motor Company

Customer: @Ford Hi can you tell me how much weight a Shelby 500 2012?
Ford: Curb weight of the Shelby GT500 Mustang is 3820lbs. ^SM

#4 Starbucks Coffee

Consumer: Kinda feel like @starbucks should explain the lack of employee tact and customer appreciation. Franchise #fail.
Starbucks: We’ll certainly try – please send info to twittercustomerservice@starbucks.com so we can look into it. So sorry.

#5 Zappos

Customer: @zappos never ceases to amaze me w/mind blowing efficiency, customer service + general awesomeness. The wave of the future is their model.
Zappos: Thanks, Sara! Doesn’t hurt to have such amazing customers = )

These brands do an excellent job tweeting about those things that their followers are curious to know about. Instead of tweeting only about their products and services, they happily engage their followers by posting amusing reply tweets to funny customer queries, thereby adding fun and spice to the Twitter conversations.

The public appreciates transparency in business. Tweets should be genuine and have a soft tone. Building public trust via social media is better accomplished when the personality that drives the social media bandwagon is a highly committed individual who is perfectly apt to maintain the brand image. Timely response via social media works well to maintain public trust in business.

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