Topic: Brands at Risk

When the World Economic Forum (WEF) came out with their Global Risks Report 2021 earlier this year, it highlighted the need for a greater focus on improving risk readiness as a way for organizations to build resilience. In their view, many organizations’ approaches to risk mitigation looked “increasingly outdated,” adding that “in a world of accelerating challenges, static annual documents need to make room for continuous horizon-scanning for early indicators of change and associated timelines for action.”

Like two sides of the same coin, digital chatter is a vehicle for certain groups to intentionally or unintentionally harm a brand, and also a vital source of intelligence for communications leaders to stay ahead of issues and mitigate crises.

Don’t like the weather? In some places they’ll tell you to wait five minutes and it’ll change. The risk landscape isn’t all that different. It changes constantly and the rising frequency of unknown risks makes it difficult to predict when a storm will hit.

Harmful content has always been a necessary evil when engaging directly with consumers. For most brands, it used to be like cosmic radiation from the sun; always there, spiking periodically, but not terribly hazardous at low doses. Then 2020 exploded, releasing Chernobyl-type levels of contamination that have decimated the growth strategies of social media managers.

In a move that has now made U.S. national news and gotten the attention of Congress, WallStreetBets, an online agenda-driven group, coordinated purchases that drove up the price of GameStop stock, some 2,000% in less than 30 days. They didn’t stop there, though. They also short squeezed AMC, BlackBerry, and Tootsie Roll, among others. 

The blueprint for a modern-day Super Bowl winner is a quick-thinking, opportunistic offense and a dominant, adaptable defense. Brands planning their own scenario for social media activities during the Big Game would be wise to embrace the same scheme this year to overcome unprecedented uncertainty.

In any other year, you may have just completed the annual social media audit or are preparing to have one done to assess the effectiveness of efforts on your social channels and identify opportunities for improvement. But if we’ve learned anything from the past year, it’s that we still have to plan for a future where the visibility ahead is limited by a dense fog of uncertainty.

For 400 American companies, the new year is starting off with a welcome accolade: they have been named to the Newsweek 2021 list of America’s Most Responsible Companies.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Or...will they?

TikTok, the addictively simple video-sharing social media platform, was officially the most downloaded app of 2020. They beat out Facebook for the most downloads last year, which represents a three-spot jump for TikTok from 2019.

It seems no good deed goes unpunished on social media.

One thing is certain amid the economic uncertainty faced by brands—truly listening to customers is a key to surviving and thriving beyond the crisis.