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:
Of the 139 communicators we’ve surveyed, 54% report that their company has a presence on social media. Only a handful of these companies, however, are using Facebook’s 600 million person-plus reach to create a globally unified, but regionally relevant experience successfully.