Backlash on social media
1,65 billion. 320 million. These numbers are not just figures. These are real people all over the world who are respectively subscribed to Facebook and Twitter. Nowadays social media is part of our daily routine. We log in on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. etc. to see what our friends are doing, what are the latest trends, but especially to see what it’s going on in the world.
What’s new? What are companies saying, how are they treating a particular matter? We can find information on whatever topic we desire: politics, economics, environment, you name it, you find it. All this widespread information that it also so handy, so immediate, helped people to feel more involved in the worldwide scene and they also feel like their voices are not just listened but really taken into account when making decisions.
Now with a click you have access to not just the information but also to the possibility of saying your opinion and your point of view. This makes the citizens feel empowered and able to make actual changes in the real offline world.
“Media participation seems to hold the promise of empowering citizens to influence their peers and thus contribute to broader public advocacy efforts that may in fact have real, if indirect, macro level policy effects, […] peer-to-peer digital media has been more broadly celebrated for its potential to strengthen civic identity and engagement and pave the way for future democratic participation” (Penney, 2014).
That leads people to comment on everything they feel like it has even the smallest impact on them.
Here some ads that produced backlash on social media regarding the way they were advertising their product:
Social media is not an easy path to go through when you want to advertise a product. People are completely free to say whatever they want, and just add the fact that this faceless communication seems to give people a sense of invincibility, if you are a marketing manager brace yourself and hope that the backlash (which is DEFINITELY going to happen) will not be so much that it will force you to take your ad down. (see: the Pepsi case)
As we already know, you can’t please everyone all of the time, but you can please some people at some time. That’s even truer in social media, since now you are opening your company up to a global audience.
The best thing any company can do is plan ahead. That’s the strategy companies should go for: you know you can’t make everyone happy and someone will always get offended. Nonetheless your aim should be to please the maximum number of people you can. Planning is therefore the key.
Apart from that, there’s little one can do: with the growing power of social media, the voices are being heard more and they are harder to keep down. But that’s also what social media is for.
