As major brands get better at their digital and social media marketing, they risk alienating consumers, even when such enterprises understand that social media marketing depends upon conducting sincere conversations with customers. After all, we consumers don’t always appreciate a conversation with a big company, even a sincere one.
For a brand like pharmaceutical giant Pfizer who doesn’t sell directly to consumers, not only is the hard sell out of the question, but even the soft sell is an inappropriate topic for social media conversations. Managing their reputation, however, is one area where digital and social media drive value.
“Reputation is based on what you do and how you talk about it,” explains Brenna Robinson, Director of Global Reputation, Media Relations and Digital Strategy at Pfizer. “We focus on proactive activities that communicate with people, for example, our GetOld.com initiative.”
GetOld.com comprises a web site, Facebook page, and other social media efforts. However, old-school marketing it’s not – in that it doesn’t pitch any products, even indirectly. “It’s a different, unexpected way to interact with people,” Robinson continues. “We’re able to reach people in a new and different way. The program is almost entirely digital/social.”
Reputation management is essentially proactive damage control. Big pharmas like Pfizer are always at risk of an adverse event that drives catastrophically bad PR – think the Chicago Tylenol murders that hit Johnson & Johnson back in 1982, or the Merck Vioxx debacle from 2004.
Reputation management, therefore, affects the bottom line directly. “If you look at companies with reputation problems, their stock price has suffered,” Robinson says. “We show that reputation is important to business success.”
Another proven value proposition for reputation management is the impact on regulators, lawmakers, and other people responsible for policies that impact Pfizer’s business. “Our surveys show connection to the bottom line, especially in the policy environment,” Robinson points out.
Read the entire article at http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2015/01/29/reputation-management-with-digital-and-social-media/.
Brenna Robinson will be speaking on “Improving Pfizer’s Reputation through Content Marketing and Digital Storytelling” at the Digital Strategy Innovation Summit in New York City on March 19 – 20.
Intellyx advises companies on their digital transformation initiatives and helps vendors communicate their agility stories. As of the time of writing, none of the organizations mentioned in this article are Intellyx customers. Image credit: The Arches.
