The art of the bad buzz

It is the fear of all communicators. That to find one day facing a debate undermining the image of the mark which they represent. On Web, we call it a bad buzz. It is the dark side of the buzz that indicates these extremely viral contents at some points. From Gangnam Style to Despacito, including Facebook challenges, flashmob or other models obstacles, you have necessarily a day displayed to this type of contents. The bad buzz is thus its negative counterpart. Typically, a mark sees the popularity rate escalating because of a bad communication.

Fear of the Web

This fear is real. A poll realized by Eval & Go last year indicates that the professionals of the public relations are 42% to feel fearful of the bad buzz. Moreover, about 45 % of them declare to have experienced a crisis on the social networks (réseaux sociaux). Behind this fear, hide to lose the public’s confidence with possible repercussions at the figure of business and the recruitment (difficulty using good profiles does not wish to be associated with a bad e-reputation).

However, you should not exaggerate the consequences of a bad buzz. Many companies have survived compromising scandals for their future. Therefore, it seems that  Volkswagen - the German company survived well the "diesel-gate". Often being accused of propagating false information, collecting mass personal data, escaping the treasury of the States in which they are implanted or even direct elections, the GAFA (for Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, are four giants which dominate the market of the digital technology) experiences a continuous crisis of low intensity. However, they continue leading a favorable opinion on behalf of the public American if we believe the latest studies of Morning Consult or YouGov BrandIndex.

Bad buzz management

Then, "circulate, is there nothing to see"? Moreover, don’t say that "is a bad buzz better than no buzz at all"? No, because what is applied to these large companies does not necessarily apply to all. With the Web 2.0, the marks cannot allow to react to a crisis at the risk of seeing the image tarnished, and temporarily as well. They should rather adopt an ethical behavior (or at least appear like that) to maintain the confidence with the public. In particular, it is the role of Community Manager which is in the front line to answer the reactions of the Internet users. Representing of the mark on the social networks, he knows his community. In this regard, he knows how to find right words to defuse a crisis susceptible to degenerate

"Defuse": on the subject, being proactive is better than being reactive. In all cases, it is advisable to opt for the transparency because today everything comes out. It is counterproductive to add a bad buzz to come to that existing. From this perspective, it is necessary to know how to remain humble and keep a low profile to avoid putting some oil on the fire. Nestlé has learnt it at its expense in 2010 when it favored the stick on the carrot in answer to a Greenpeace campaign accusing of contributing to the deforestation. Instead of looking for the dialogue, the administrator of Facebook page threatened to erase all the comments considered non-corresponding. Result: socio-nautes register massively to multiply the critics! Hence,  all this for the fact that, in the end, the company recognizes its disadvantages and supports, among others, the moratorium of the non-governmental organization on the deforestation.

The voucher bad buzz

However, all the bad buzzes do not go far at all. According to the context, it is allowed to answer the crisis by the humor and return the situation to its advantage. In 2012, Redoute learnt that a man naked circulated visually of his site. In spite of the image’s fast retreat and the company’s excuses, the bad buzz was inevitable. It decided to react at the second degree by suggesting the Internet users finding errors voluntarily placed in the site’s contents. The campaign is a success.

Well, it just shows that there is nothing to be afraid of the bad buzz. This one can be an opportunity to strengthen the image of the mark.

Article written by Thierry Randretsa