Brands can no longer afford to ignore the stark reality that 86% of consumers consider a good reputation an essential factor in purchasing decisions. In this social-first world, consumer behaviors are changing to favor brands with positive social reputations.
We all know what brand reputation is – the catch-all term to determine how a brand is perceived through all customer touchpoints from product quality to customer service and marketing. While striving for quality and consistency in these areas will always remain important to brands, social reputation is becoming an emerging priority.
Social reputation is the new currency that brands exchange for increased trust, sentiment, and ultimately engagement with customers. In this article, we’ll unpack these ideas, explore brand safety solutions like Secure, and offer further reading in our comprehensive brand reputation whitepaper.
The Five Levels of Social Reputation
So where does a brand’s social reputation live exactly? Unlike brand reputation, which is the product of tangible action and quantitive metrics, social reputation exists in the exchange of thoughts occurring across a multitude of social media platforms, forums, and messaging apps.
There are multiple levels where conversations over social issues play out, yet it all starts at the fundamental level of values and beliefs. These opinions and views of the world encompass politics, environment, and labor, are powerful expressions of identity. We live in a period of human history where, through greater transparency, many social issues are coming to light. During this time, brands are navigating through a battlefield of emotionally charged agendas that are dividing the very consumers they are trying to sell to.
Brand crises don’t occur overnight, they often bubble under the surface:
- Pressure Groups: These are complex, well-funded groups tied to cultural, societal, or political issues that can eventually impact a brand’s reputation if not managed proactively.
- Community Issues: These are risks brewing within specific communities, groups, or user segments that are not easily visible but have the potential to escalate.
- Rising Tensions: These issues are gaining traction but have yet to reach widespread public awareness and are therefore manageable if identified early.
- Public Outrage: These are visible issues that erupt into the public domain, catching widespread attention and posing immediate and significant threats to a brand’s reputation, requiring urgent, coordinated responses.
Check out our five levels of social reputation infographic in Viral Nation’s new whitepaper: Brand Reputation Meets Social-First Marketing: Closing the Brand Safety Blind Spots.
Following the recent scandals involving many prominent brands, marketers are wondering if taking a stance on social issues is ‘to be or not to be’.
Aligning with Consumer Values
Perhaps the trickiest decision for marketing decision-makers is deciding whether to align brand and audience values. In some cases, like Patagonia, it’s the foundation for a successful long-term marketing strategy and for others it’s ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’. The honest answer is there isn’t one rule that applies to all brands, and the decision comes down to a brand’s identity and what your target audience values.
Whether you’re a brand or a creator, the pressure to align with audience values comes from both sides of the playing field. Brands can’t ignore that 59% of all consumer demographics would prefer to buy from companies that reflect their social values. Creators also feel the pressure to act as 87% of consumers expect influencers to speak out about causes. It’s not surprising that brands, ‘stuck between a rock and a hard place’, choose to pull back to inaction or worse – find themselves in the unfortunate situation of controversy in reactive crisis management mode.
To see how brands are engaging authentically in this space, look no further than Patagonia. While every company has a mission statement, Patagonia proudly declares itself as environmental activists who take action to support the planet. Instead of being victims of boycotts, they spearhead them. By living and breathing their ethos through their actions and marketing, consumers embody these values through their clothes, feeling virtuous in their purchases.
View this post on Instagram
But aligning with consumer values is a double-edged sword and not suitable for every brand. Some brands are comfortable leaning into social issues while others have been burnt, pulled back, and remain neutral. This complexity includes increasingly segmented target audiences often with widely conflicting opinions. Therefore, one rule does not apply to all brands – each social issue and associated risk must be weighed individually in the context of brand identity and target audience.
While there are risks associated with taking a social stance, there are even greater rewards for brands embracing a social-first approach.
Close brand safety blind spots with proactive insights and data
The Opportunity in Social Reputation
Brands like e.l.f. have proven that leaning into social communities, where their targeted audience lives, is a lucrative challenge worth taking. By diverting their marketing efforts into female empowerment initiatives that challenge male-dominated spaces like NASCAR, Tennis, and Gaming, e.l.f is awarded with approval and engagement through social media and beyond.
Their latest foray into supporting the Billie Jean King Cup not only reinforces their social reputation as a force for good but gives them ample opportunities to engage with consumers on the ground through social experiential initiatives and by partnering with content creators and leaders in the space.
“You can’t create real equality if the awareness to build a fan base isn’t there. e.l.f. is stepping up to help shape the conversation. By creating access, we inspire change and empower others to do the same,” said Kory Marchisotto, Chief Marketing Officer, e.l.f. Beauty.
Ensuring Brand Fit
More than ever, brands are called out for having contradicting views and actions, questioning a brand’s true intentions and integrity. This has touched anything from unethical supply chains, to how employees are treated, to the influencers they work with and what they represent. So whether you’re a brand with strong values or one that’s staying neutral on social issues, choosing who to partner with has never been more important. For brands harnessing the power of influencer marketing, finding a brand-creator fit is especially pertinent.
The refreshing blend of free expression and authenticity has drawn entire communities around creators through shared ideas and interests. Creators have learned that consistency, persistence, and ultimately volume are the key ingredients to success. So when marketing teams approach these self-published creators, their resume lies in the hundreds or thousands of videos created over the years since inception. Through this jungle of content, all it takes is one controversial post to damage the social reputation of the associated brand.
Understanding a creator’s ethos, values, interests, vices, and affiliations forms the core of creator intelligence. The more you know about a creator, the more you can determine whether they align with your brand values and code of conduct. Creator intelligence is therefore the key to scaling influencer marketing securely, minimizing the risk to social reputation that comes with larger campaigns involving multiple creators.
Developing true creator intelligence requires checking, frame-by-frame, every creator video across every platform going back to a channel’s inception. The recent explosion of AI onto the scene has come at a time when the challenges of big data are too great for the limited manpower of marketing teams. AI-powered tools like Viral Nation Secure™ allow brands to safely scale their influencer marketing efforts by automating the difficult task of ensuring perfect brand fit.
Earn Social Currency With Viral Nation’s New Whitepaper
Social reputation is a valuable currency in any modern brand safety strategy. Brands like e.l.f and Patagonia have cashed in their social reputation through highly successful marketing campaigns while other well-known brands are still recovering from PR disasters. Therefore, building and maintaining this reputation is the difference between being seen as a trusted leader or facing long-term fallout from public scrutiny.
Modern brand safety is a large puzzle with many moving pieces. To understand and solve this puzzle, Viral Nation created a comprehensive brand safety whitepaper combining the insights of industry veterans with leading data and analysis. In Brand Reputation Meets Social-First Marketing: Closing the Brand Safety Blind Spots, brands can identify the gaps in their brand safety strategy before committing to action.
What You’ll Learn:
- Expert Opinions: Informed by the minds of industry leaders on the latest strategies and technology revolutionizing brand safety.
- Brand Safety Infographic: Understand the full context of social issues before committing to action.
- Actionable Frameworks: Get step-by-step frameworks for implementing proactive brand safety measures that align with your brand’s values and resonate with your audience.
