Why Your Organization Needs to Tread Carefully on Social Media
Social media plays a crucial role in contemporary recruiting, especially with respect to employer branding. According to Employer Branding International, 76 percent of companies use social media to solidify and promote their employer brands. Organizations broadcast their cultures, their values, and their beliefs by making strategic moves on social media, hoping they’ll strike a chord with people who will fit in as employees.
But employer branding efforts are worthless unless people actually see them, which is why so many companies jump on trending hashtags, like #tbt (“Throwback Thursday,” for those of us who don’t do hashtags), or produce branded memes. These companies figure they’ll get attract more talent (and consumers) by tapping into the digital zeitgeist.
Sometimes, this works out well (remember Nature Valley’s foray into weird Twitter ?). Other times, employers really blow it.
We’re Talking about Domestic Violence, Not Pizza
After video surfaced of NFL star Ray Rice assaulting his then-fiancée Janay Palmer (now his wife), survivors of domestic assault took to Twitter with the hashtag “#WhyIStayed.” The point of this movement was to create an open platform for survivors to express and discuss the complex and difficult reality of leaving an abusive relationship.
Unfortunately, DiGiorno Pizza didn’t realize this. The company’s official account tweeted what it thought was a snarky little joke that capitalized on a trending hashtag: “#WhyIStayed You had pizza.” Need I even mention how poorly this went over with Twitter users, who saw a frozen pizza company making light of domestic assault.
DiGiorno quickly apologized, noting that it did not research the hashtag before posting the tweet in question. And here we have it, a prime example of how employer branding can go horribly, horribly wrong: in the quest to stay relevant and capitalize on Internet trends, DiGiorno tweeted first and asked questions later. The company soiled its brand in the eyes of customers and potential employees alike. Would people want to work for or buy from a company careless enough to make such a comment? Sure, it was an accident, but it could have been easily prevented.
The takeaway here is that an organization cannot go blindly into the social media landscape. Staying relevant is a good idea, but relevance requires knowledge of the field. It’s easy to get caught up in the mile-a-minute speed of Twitter (and other sites), but it’s far safer to take a couple of minutes to make sure you’re not thoughtlessly misusing your medium and offending people in the process.
Even the Best of Intentions Can Lead Us Awry
With the DiGiorno example, we have a case of simple negligence: some employee (or third-party contractor) didn’t take the time to read up on a trending hashtag before trying to capitalize on it. Sometimes, however, brands blow it on social media for a different reason: they have good intentions, but terrible execution.
Every year on September 11, people populate social media with all manner of memorials. For the most part, these are sweet and/or profound expressions of community, remembrance, and love. And then there are the tone-deaf tweets collected by Adweek, which show brands like Build-A-Bear and Tied to the South resorting to self-promotion and tasteless Twitter games, respectively.
Perhaps I’m being too forgiving, but I truly believe these brands had good intentions: it was the anniversary of one of the most horrific tragedies our nation has ever seen, and these companies wanted to show their support for America and commemorate those we lost. If you check out the Adweek article I linked above, you’ll see examples of organizations doing this the right way: they put aside their brand concerns and placed all focus on the day itself. The brands who messed up did so because they figured, “Hey, while we’re at it, why not gain some exposure for ourselves?”
Such self-promotion on a day of mourning makes these brands look cruel and heartless. Why would I want to work for a company that thinks it’s a good idea to ask for one retweet for every life lost on 9/11 (looking at you, Tied to the South)? Why would I want to buy your camouflaged plush toy, Build-A-Bear, when your tweet seems motivated by profit rather than genuine concern?
I don’t wish to flog any of these brands. They messed up, and they all know it, thanks to pronounced public backlash. Instead, what I want to do is make something constructive of all this. We have a very valuable teaching moment here: social media is a powerful tool for your company’s branding efforts, but, as Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben so sagely advises, “With great power comes great responsibility.”