Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Wittingly or not, major global corporations are helping fund sites that traffic in fake news by advertising on them.

Take, for instance, a story that falsely claimed former President Barack Obama had banned Christmas cards to overseas military personnel. Despite debunking by The Associated Press and other fact-checking outlets, that article lives on at "Fox News The FB Page," which has no connection to the news channel although its bears a replica of its logo.

And until recently, the story was often flanked by ads from big brands such as the insurer Geico, the business-news outlet Financial Times, and the beauty-products maker Revlon.

This situation isn't remotely an isolated case, although major companies generally say they have no intention of bankrolling purveyors of fake news with their ad dollars. Because many of their ads are placed on websites by computer algorithms, it's not always easy for these companies to steer them away from sites they find objectionable....

Like our favorite celebrities, brands aren’t perfect.  Bad PR is a part of life because people aren’t perfect and the companies they run follow suit.  Recently New Balance became the first company to publicly back Donald Trump, a very divisive figure for reasons you would have to be sleeping under a rock to not know already.  

Priding themselves on being a brand that develops their products on American soil, New Balance saw Trump’s election as an opportunity for business growth and one that would bring more jobs to Americans.  However, that is their opinion and not some universal truth.

Politics is a tricky place for a brand to choose sides when there are so many issues that people take seriously.  Thousands of sneakerheads were outraged at New Balance’s political stance. So outraged that they denounced their love for the brand all over social media by literally posting pictures of them throwing the sneakers away and burning them.  Things really spiraled out of control when neo-nazis procclaimed the sneaker to be the official sneaker of white people.  Yes, that really happened.  

Obviously publicly backing a divisive president-elect has some serious downsides with the public, so what do we do as consumers after our favorite brands choose to do something against our personal values?...

Hootsuite founder and CEO, Ryan Holmes, dishes on why social media is not just important for brands, but for the heads of the brands as well.

When it comes to marketing, social media is often discussed as a channel directive. It is a channel marketers need to cultivate an audience on, and can be used to humanize their brand to an extent. Social—especially in the age of Trump—is now often a medium where brands must defend themselves against major scandals.

But we rarely bring CEOs into the marketing/social media mix.Ryan Holmes, founder and CEO of Hootsuite, spoke with us in the latest DMN One on One podcast. We caught up with Holmes a few days before the release of his latest book, "The 4 Billion Dollar Tweet." Here's our conversation on how CEOs can, and why they should, get savvy with social media....

But to little old me, a sincere apology goes a long way. When I sense genuine remorse, it means a lot to me -- perhaps because it's so rare, at least in my experience. Combined with my nerdy affection for all things marketing, that sentiment applies to brand apologies, too. It's not so much that I think, "Wow, that means a lot to me," but more like, "Wow, that company really nailed saying, 'Sorry.'"

So, who's done it best? We rounded up some of our favorite brand apologies to inspire you next time you make a mistake -- and need to admit your wrongdoing....

If there is one entrepreneur who knows the real value of building social relationships, and how they can extend into the world of social media, it’s health and fitness mogul Andy Frisella: founder of Supplement Superstores, Paradise Distribution, and the renowned fitness brand 1st Phorm International. These brands, among others, bring in more than $100 million a year.

How?

He has built a true community....

Should executives respond when a tweet or unexpected event touches their business or rouses their employees and customers? There are risks and rewards to CEO activism. Weber Shandwick, where I serve as chief reputation officer, and KRC Research surveyed 1,050 senior executives and 2,100 consumers across 21 markets worldwide to find out what people expect from corporate brands.

Our research shows that the two biggest factors that influence respondents’ opinions about companies are what customers say about them (88%) and how they react in crisis (85%). In fact, how a company responds to a controversy, including how quickly, is more important in driving public perception about the company than what is said about that company in the media (76%), by employees (76%), on the company’s website (68%), by spokespeople (61%), or in the company’s advertising (61%)....

Customer service today means serving customers "in the red zone." Besides my former beloved 1986 red Honda Prelude, most red things for me fall into a negative category. Think sunburn, red alert, STOP sign, SOS.

The red zone is different for different people and different every time. And that’s the whole point. Sometimes it’s because expectations are set so high with a direct line and then fall short and disappoint, as in my London business travel experience. And sometimes it’s because the bar is set so low and a brand still fails to make the cut, like the slow moving lines at the Post Office and just as you’re the next person (and of course pressed for time), the next open window closes so the agent can take a break... But it’s always in-the-moment and real for the customer.

In other words, customers are normal, garden-variety social, emotional creatures that now have a bullhorn to broadcast their (dis)pleasures with your brand. Humans have always been social, emotional creatures so there’s nothing new here. What is new are the channels and media we have access to at any given point on any given day and the larger pool of connections we can stay in touch with via our social networks/communities. And still there are so many brands that fail to incorporate this new reality into strategy, operations and customer service. In the latest study conducted by Twitter, they found that by responding to customers on Twitter, customers are 44% more likely to share their experience, 30% more likely to recommend the brand, and the responsiveness will positively increase CSAT by 1 point....

IAn instant is all it takes to threaten your business's sterling reputation online. You might have had an off day or the misfortune of dealing with an ornery customer, but it's almost inevitable that you'll come face to face with a negative online review at some point in your career.

But, as Adrienne Weissman, CMO at G2 Crowd, recently pointed out, negative reviews aren't all bad. Some 70% of Americans read reviews before making a purchase, and those who seek out negative reviews tend to be more engaged and are 67% more likely to make a purchase. Plus, 68% of people trust a company more when their reviews are a mix of good and bad.

Of course, the key to making the best of a bad review lies largely in your response. That means you need to be able to find reviews (both good and bad) as they pop up. That's definitely more social media monitoring than one person can handle...

And that's where reputation management tools come in. The following five reputation management tools are some of the best on the market for tracking mentions, discovering influencers, and managing online reviews as they happen....