To respond to a bad buzz, you must first evaluate the degree of severity.
There are four elements to consider in this analysis:
The volume of brand mentions.
The tone and language used.
The communities involved.
The scope and international coverage.
The Volume of Brand Mentions
Are you noticing a high number of mentions of your brand?
If you don’t have an ongoing marketing campaign, you shouldn’t overlook this “weak signal.”
Of course, it’s all a question of proportion. If you average 2,000 mentions of your brand per month, 3,000 might not be a concern. However, if it’s usually more like 500, it’s time to identify the sources of these mentions.
The Tone and Language Used
What is the emotion expressed in the posts about you?
Take a closer look at these statements:
What is the tone of the message? Is it positive? “I love…,” “Great,” “
.” Is it neutral? “How much does it cost?” “I would like to know more.” Is it negative? “Yuck,” “This is unacceptable.”.Does the language correspond to the one usually used to describe your brand?
Do you spot any terms that are sensitive to your brand? For example, “boycott,” “scandal,” “fake,” “racism,” etc.
The Communities Involved
Now that you know the problem, it is important to identify the “whistleblowers” (those who originated the crisis or fanned the flames).
These individuals may belong to identified communities, such as:
Online influencers.
Journalists.
Activists within identified associations.
Consumers or customers.
Your employees.
A crisis that develops within a single community is easier to defuse than if it spreads across several.
Internationalization
The last criterion to analyze is the geographic scope of the crisis.
If the bad buzz remains isolated and limited to a specific social network, it is still manageable. However, it gets complicated when it expands to another platform and then progressively to another, or even several media, possibly internationally.
In addition to much higher visibility of the crisis, there is a significant risk of misinterpretation. Certain subjects from one country or culture may be more sensitive than another.
The Deditex Case Study
This document contains an initial analysis of the Deditex crisis.
Let’s Recap!
Assess the crisis based on these four evaluation criteria:
Volume of mentions.
Sentiment of the mentions.
Affected communities.
International coverage.
At some point, any organization can face bad buzz. The ones who come out on top are the most prepared for it. And that’s what the next chapter is all about. You’ll get the tools, so you are ready if a crisis strikes!
