Pop quiz: Is Twitter an opportunity or a threat for your business? The answer, of course, is both.
Social media allows businesses to connect more directly with customers and prospective customers than in any time in history. And it also allows competitors and detractors to screw with your brand more than in any time in history.
The stakes are real, and so is the data. A recent study conducted by a professor at Belgium’s University of Leuven found:
- 94 percent of all PR crises either started or were fanned by Twitter, and online trolls were a “key catalyst” for spreading awareness of PR issues
- 19 percent of PR crises actually broke on Twitter, making the social media platform a bigger threat to brands than Facebook (16 percent), YouTube (4 percent) and blogs (4 percent)
- Consumers are more comfortable criticizing brands on Twitter. Users are 17 percent more likely to send a negative Tweet than publish a negative Facebook post.
These figures are as stunning as they are frightening. If social media monitoring isn’t part of your marketing budget, you are making a serious mistake.
At GroundFloor Media, we have dedicated social media and crisis communications teams that work with clients to proactively identify threats to their brands so we can help minimize reputational damage before any issues reach critical mass.
No company would ignore picketers protesting in front of their doors. Why would you ignore the digital equivalent of that, particularly when social media has the ability to magnify their impact nearly exponentially?
