Companies’ engagement with stakeholders on Facebook has skyrocketed in the past year. However, given the open and dynamic nature of Facebook, companies have less control over communication exchange and expose themselves to reputation risks. How can these risks be identified and minimized? How can companies adapt to changing rules of stakeholder interaction on Facebook?

Reputation risks could surface in any form. They could be as simple as an irritated consumer complaint. They could be as complex as a systematic, malicious vendetta against your company stance on a policy issue. Even simple complaints, when left to fester, could result in a reputation crisis.

The absence of well-established laws governing social media communications make it challenging for companies to contest reputation damage on Facebook. However, this shouldn’t stop them from putting a proactive social media reputation strategy  in place. Leading food and beverage corporation, Kraft Foods Inc,. has put in place a 6 pronged strategy to address various kinds of reputation risks on Facebook.

We’ve summarized Kraft Foods’ Facebook reputation management processes in the graphic, below:

Kraft Foods reputation risk management strategy includes both at internal employees and external stakeholders. A typical risk management process is as follows :

• Kraft Foods’ Social Media team takes ownership of all its postings as detailed in its Facebook posting rules — this provides clarity of ownership and helps ensure a standard, congenial conversation.
• Kraft Foods’ Social Media team continuously monitors Facebook postings for negative sentiment, profanity, and hateful comments – these trigger an immediate damage control response.
• Once a risk event is detected, the Social Media team uses a Crisis Potential Questionnaire consisting of 15 questions, to determine the severity of the reputation risk event. This helps the company to decide on the de-escalation time frame, and channels of de-escalation.
• Kraft Foods’ Social Media team uses a Social Media escalation document to direct resolution steps to the correct internal stakeholders, and prescribes the course of action for various reputation risk events.
• In times of crisis, the Moderator on the Social Media team checks any communication which goes out on behalf of Kraft Foods, to ensure it accurately represents the company’s point of view.
• However, if a sustained and malafide reputation risk persists despite the company’s best attempts to alleviate it, the Social Media team consults the legal department for possible legal recourse.

This approach has ensured that, despite having more than 20,000 Facebook fans, Kraft Foods mitigates major reputational risk on its Facebook page.

Access our Facebook toolkit to understand Kraft Foods’ Facebook reputation management process in detail. This research also contains inputs on Facebook strategy, success metrics and operational guidelines to setup a Facebook page for Corporate Communications.