“It takes years to build the brand, but only a nanosecond for a poorly managed crisis to ruin it.” This statement is the reason why many companies have brand or reputation management. Brand reputation management entails advancing the art of protecting a brand among its various audiences.
The continued and successful brand’s reputation management creates what is known as ‘Brand integrity’, which can be defined as how customers view the business through its product or service, logo, and prestige. And while any consumer encounter does not satisfy or surpass the commitment of the brand, when a brand lacks credibility, its importance and relevance to customers are decreased.
To ensure high brand credibility, many companies are very careful with what their brand is associated with, including promotions, sponsors, and advertising. In this digital era whereby all companies have digital addresses, to manage their communication crisis, particularly on social media, many companies do the following:
Conduct an audit of the organization’s reputations. At this stage, the crisis management team, in cooperation with outside communication counsel, will identify all possible threats and develop plans to avoid communication crises based on identified issues and factors. Under this activity, many companies develop issues and personas to avoid while running their advertising and promotion activities.
Have a social media policy. To be proactive in dealing with communication crises, many organisations, through their legal departments, have developed a social media policy that guides their actions on social media pages or through third parties like advertising agencies and influencers. Through the social media policy of the companies, some influencers, even before being considered for influencing a service or product of a certain organisation, found themselves under ‘Company’s Influencers Blacklist’.
Establish an organisational and media monitoring system to ensure everyone who, in one way or another, is involved in disseminating organisation information aligns with the key message, behaves in an acceptable manner, and does not violate organisation and social media policy. Organisations develop strong monitoring systems, and in this world of advertising using social media’s influencers, many influencers are being blacklisted by organisations monitoring systems due to their activities that are against their policies.
Therefore, for anyone who wishes to work with advertising agencies or any cooperating company, their online identity must observe the integrity principle acceptable to the online community, its prospects, and its customers. By doing so, your name will never be blacklisted from the influencer lists of various advertising agencies and companies.