How to stay ahead of the discourse.
There’s a misconception about social risk that it’s driven by outsiders. In reality, some of the most volatile moments happen when communities turn on themselves.
“It’s where people are going to go to know what’s going on. If something happens, that’s where people look,” said Lisa Kay Davis, global associate director of social at Kyndryl.
Davis, who will speak next month at Ragan’s Social Media Conference, leads global organic social operations at the B2B technology services company with about 80,000 employees. Her main social goals are consistency and risk prevention.
“I’m the one who ensures that everything is steady, that we are avoiding any brand risk,” Davis said.
Before this happens, it’s important to understand what factors play into this type of risk and how to predict and prevent it from escalating.
Social risk comes from community clashes
Intra-community clashes can escalate fast, especially when brands are not prepared. Davis said she has seen it happen across both consumer and B2B brands and it often catches teams off guard.
“It’s not necessarily an external person saying, ‘I don’t agree.’ It’s the insular communities clashing with each other,” she said.
Davis pointed to a client in the vegan space as one example. Ahead of a recorded TV appearance, her team set up a war room to prepare for potential online backlash around veganism. The tension didn’t come from people who opposed vegan diets entirely. It came from people who defined veganism differently, she said.
Davis and her team considered the different groups within this community: who committed based on health reasons? Who chose the lifestyle due to moral beliefs? The team questioned how they could align their message to appeal to both of these groups.
These kinds of conflicts are harder because the brand is not the clear target, Davis said. The risk is that the brand becomes the referee by default or gets pulled into taking sides without realizing it.
“People who disagree with each other online about what they know to be true, I don’t think people consider that,” Davis said.
Building personas based on identity
To avoid a misstep, Davis and her team built personas to handle how people might respond.
Traditional social personas tend to stop at descriptors like age, platform, region, job title or gender. That is not enough when conflict is driven by identity and values, Davis said.
In the vegan example, everyone technically belonged to the same community, but they were motivated by very different reasons.
This distinction matters because each group of people may react to language, visuals and tone in different ways, she said.
What communicators can do is map what people care about protecting. Are they defending ethics, status, expertise, personal identity or lived experience?
“When teams understand those motivations, they can anticipate where friction will occur,” Davis said.
This helps teams avoid language that inflames one group while trying to appeal to another, she said.
Respond individually
Teams should also have responses prepped for scenarios where followers argue with each other without the brand necessarily being tagged, she said.
“When do we step in? When do we let it burn out? Do we respond publicly, privately or not at all?” Davis said.
Anticipate the risk of stepping in. Do this by reinforcing brand values while being truthful, Davis said. Empathy and authenticity in your messaging will help de-escalate the situation, she said.
“You have to have a team that is dedicated to monitoring conversation and really paying attention to the signals and how conversations grow and evolve,” she said.
Register here to learn more from Davis and other industry experts during Social Media Conference March 9-11 in Orlando, Fl.
Courtney Blackann is a communications reporter. Connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at courtneyb@ragan.com.
The post The social risk you didn’t consider: When communities turn on each other appeared first on PR Daily.
