Amid protests around the world over the recent incidents of police brutality in the US, the issue has gone viral challenging corporations that are active in social media to take a stand on the issue.
Of course, the whole issue is absolutely serious and especially multidimensional, and this is not the place to dive into its essence. As communication consultants, however, we cannot miss recognizing a case study that highlights interesting aspects of how everyone approaches communication strategy when called upon to advise their client.
So, this is a good opportunity to remember a basic differentiation that we tend to forget. Corporate social media accounts are often considered to have the same attributes as individual ones in the sense that they reflect a (collectively, but nonetheless) unique entity: the corporation. This is, to some extent, true, but there is a difference: while an individual account can be accepted as expressing and promoting both professional positions and personal tastes and opinions, the corporate account has only one ultimate goal: awareness, prominence and ultimately brand expansion with a clear commercial horizon.
If we are clear on this, we can more easily decide what to advise. Because when an account that ultimately aims at benefitting commercially “embraces” viral trends in order to achieve its purpose, it becomes “open” to criticism to the tune: “you are fishing for likes over people’s graves.” It doesn’t matter if the criticism is fair or not. It is important that one should expect it and weigh it before posting the next “I can’t breathe”.
