CEO Mary Barra has not been able to stop GM’s crisis. But her 2.0 crisis communications skills are an asset to GM. They can be judged by the transparency and skill with which she handled the recall catastrophe on the Internet.
Barra’s communications strategy incorporates multiple digital media platforms. She has used these channels to respond to the crisis with a strong and genuine message. In addition to harnessing social media like Facebook and Twitter to connect directly with customers, she has also addressed the recalls in a series of videos, a USA TODAY editorial, and even her commencement speech at the University of Michigan earlier this month. CEOs can learn much from studying her playbook.
Social media has played a central role in several of the most successful reputation management campaigns of the last few years.
In a recent Forbes.com article Scott Davis described how Toyota repaired its reputation following the bout of recalls that sent it plummeting in 2009 and 2010. The automaker employed a series of innovative social media strategies to engage with its customers on a personal level.
One of Toyota’s strategies was a series of Digg Dialogg Q&A sessions, which allowed the company to respond directly and candidly to customers and critics. Mashable’s Todd Wasserman said those sessions, “gave Toyota the appearance of achieving social media branding nirvana: Transparency.”
Transparency Paid Off
That approach clearly paid off, as Harris Interactive’s latest Reputational Quotient survey, published in February, ranks Toyota as the company with the most-improved reputation.
Harris Interactive’s survey reveals that few companies have seen their reputations improve lately. Joining Toyota in that small group is BP, which embraced social media in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Strategy Matters
Simply building a presence in social media isn’t enough. AT&T, for example, implemented an extensive social media customer service strategy aimed at rehabilitating its tarnished reputation.
The factors that separate an effective strategy from a failed one can be difficult to generalize. The best strategies seem to be tailor-made for a company, its customers, and the problems it is facing. Davis summed it up nicely: “Reputation is something that is both fragile yet resilient. The ability to spring back when it’s damaged takes a keen understanding of the factors and attitudes that shape a reputation to begin with.”
