Handling social media with care

Unless carefully used, innovative web 2.0 campaigns can backfire and attract negative publicity

 

Social media are considered useful tools in reputation management activities of the 21st century, as they have opened a new way for organisations to interact directly and engage with their stakeholders. Practitioners indicate that their main reasons for employing social media are their friendly usability, lower cost, their capacity to reach different virtual communities and their reputation of providing ‘non-filtered’ and ‘unpolished’ information.

Despite their importance and role, social media generate diverse problems of a logistical nature (how can organisations identify major stakeholders in the different virtual communities, and then how can companies create valuable systems of relations with them online?), of relational type (which kind of systems of relations can an organisation have in social media? Can an organisation create trust among its stakeholders using web 2.0?), and, above all, of evaluative type (which consequences on stakeholder relations and reputation may be encountered by an organisation that excessively uses social media?).

To illustrate these main points, I’d like to present a recent campaign promoted by VisitDenmark, the Danish National Tourism Board. This case is particularly interesting because important considerations for communication mangers interested in adopting social media into their reputation activities can be seen, and because it underlines the implications of using social media for an organisation’s reputation and stakeholder relations.

Chiara Valentini

Chiara Valentini is professor of corporate communication at Jyvaskyla University School of Business and Economics. She has also worked for and consulted organisations and public institutions of several countries, including the Italian Representation of the European Commission in Rome and the European Movement International Secretariat in Brussels.