Response to Negative Feedback from Social Media

Response to Negative Feedback from Social Media

Organizations use social media for their marketing purposes. It is a very effective way of marketing if it is looked from a point that when a product is shared or suggested, it reaches a large number of people without any effort from the organization except for the initial post. (REED, 2011). According to eBizMBA (2015), top five popular social networking sites of 2015 are “Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google Plus+” (eBizMBA, 2015). All of these sites have hundreds of users constantly sharing and commenting through links. Social media made real time information exchange so easy and fast. We all accept and see the advantages of social media. What happens when this wheel turns backward instead of helping a company advertising its new product or store, it takes the company’s reputation down by negative feedback. Is this something that companies are prepared for? What could be done to prevent this from happening?

Kash and Darling (1998) suggest that in regards to managing a company’s reputational crisis “primary success comes from prevention, preparation, and intervention”. Prevention is about setting up a positive reputation among stakeholders at the beginning before any crisis. As Coombs and Holladay (2006) claim that a good reputation helps to repair a bad one. Preparation is about constant monitoring and foreseeing the upcoming crisis. Haywood (2015) suggests that having a crisis protection plan is like having reputation insurance. Intervention is the most important factor because it is about company’s action and steps at the time of a crises (as cited in Smaiziene & Orzekauskas, 2009). Responding to negative feedback from social media is very important for organizations. Almost all suggestions from experts have one very common answer that is to acknowledge and respond immediately. It is very important not to delete the comment, as Topper (2013) suggests that it only makes it worse and...