Oh no, here come the haters…

On a recent project, I saw an unusual anomaly through social media.  It was very much akin to a good old fashioned smear campaign with the ultimate goal to embed a negative image of the company.  Unlike targeted messages, these mentions were broadcast to anyone available to try and achieve the greatest reach possible.  The same messages and themes were delivered routinely and they were sent out anywhere usually from 6-72 hours after either a public announcement from the company or a mention of the company (positive and negative) by traditional media.  The interesting thing was that a) the same folks kept issuing out identical or slightly altered messages and b) they would double up their efforts after any positive mention about the company or its activities. It became fairly clear that here was a market segment that was in no way interested in engaging in a dialogue with the company on a level playing field.  As opposed to others who were interested in what the company was doing to mitigate any negative impacts on the environment and society, this group viewed the company as evil (not even a necessary evil) and wanted nothing less than to see them out of business (conjecture on my part).  Hence, we termed them the “haters”.  Trying to take down a company is a daunting challenge especially when you are faced with a multibillion dollar global conglomerate.  What they were attempting was to try and erode consumer confidence and shape public sentiment in a piecemeal fashion.  This may not be a concern in a traditional (non-digital) campaign but we live in a hyper connected real time society where the internet has infinite memory and old messages become new once again when different communities discover them and disseminate them to their followers/friends/fans etc.  In addition, you have the ease of aggregation in a globally connected always online society.  That means that a group in Asia who might never know about similar concerns/issues/tactics of another group in the US can find and connect with them through SEM, social media analysis or any number of ways groups connect online and with the rush to translate content they can now collaborate, aggregate negative views and provide a unified front.  So what was before a singular volley or campaign directed at a company now becomes a global coordinated campaign.  This can become a difficult thing to get past no matter how much the organization is trying to impart positive change.  In our social media class, we take a look at the Greenpeace/Nestle case study, where Greenpeace launched a campaign to affect policy at Nestle around responsible sourcing of materials.  This was a global well orchestrated campaign that in a short amount of time rallied a community to implement new policies and procedures at one of the largest CPG companies in the world.

So what’s a company to do about the haters?  Well, you can’t ignore them and you can’t marginalize them and you can try, but it probably won’t be successful, to engage them.  You can spend a great deal of time, energy and cost to try and get them to understand your role and the societal benefit of your actions but it will most likely fall on deaf ears.  The opportunity cost associated with these actions can become huge.  The haters are ‘dug in” and they have sent a good chunk of their time and effort propagating negative messages.  They are not going to suddenly give up and come over to your corner with some well crafted messaging.  So, focus on the markets that want to have a discourse making sure that you do it on a level playing field not trying to cram down top down messaging.  Develop advocates with a deep understanding of your industry and the associated challenges realizing that some will resonate with your messaging be it around good corporate citizenship, health and welfare of society, sustainability and resource conservation, etc.  Others will be continuous skeptics and influenced by the haters.  Build your community of stakeholders, both with you and on the fence, by engaging with them on topics that are relevant in an online fashion where they aggregate to discuss.  Understand their vernacular and social norms so that you don’t come across as the 800 lb elephant that just entered the room.  Yes the haters will come out on mass but the only way to counteract negative sentiment is by building your voice and community awareness around the positive.