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Cresencia Marjorie Chiremba
“If you don’t give the market the story to talk about, they’ll define your brand’s story for you.”- David Brier
What comes to your mind when you wake up one day and your brand is all over social media for the wrong reasons?
It could be heart breaking; but next comes the curiosity to find out what could have gone wrong!
While the customer is confused about the bad news, the business owner could be in a worse state of mind.
This is due to the fact that when one starts a business, they work very hard to make sure that their company’s name and reputation are intact and positive all the time.
They try to manage both their personal and corporate personas, so that they exude a positive perception to anyone interested.
The business highway is however not a smooth road. They may be bumpy sections along the road that may result in poor or downright negative reviews.
Such reviews have the potential to hurt good brands, if they are not properly managed.
But what is a brand smear campaign in business?
We talk about defamation of character on persons, but the same also applies to corporate brands.
A smear campaign is when false information about a brand is deliberately shared on public platforms in a way that is damaging to an individual or a business reputation. This sort of campaign usually results in many false accusations, which are then spread as rumours.
There has been so much talk about smear campaigns by politicians, especially during electoral periods as they try to outwit each other, and appeal to the electorate.
Brands have also experienced such smear campaigns.
Local funeral assurers have, of late, been under fire on social media platforms over various issues.
When one looks at it from a layman’s point of view, the accusations may sound legit, but usually smears tend to be underpinned by half-truths.
This is unfortunate, especially in this era of digital media, where purchase decisions are mostly based on posted reviews.
When correct information is not availed, it is only natural that customers will believe information that is circulating and they will not know for sure if it is just a smear campaign or it is the truth.
Businesses are becoming more reliant on feedback, such as ratings, reviews, recommendations, as well as questions and answers from their customers.
Thus, corporates must always provide relevant and authentic information.
Coming up with policies that ensures that reviews and feedback are based on genuine purchasing experiences can be of great help.
On the other hand, they must also keep fraudulent, irrelevant and offensive feedbacks out of their platforms, especially those that have direct interaction with their customers.
Smear campaigns are very difficult to contain in the online world than in the real world.
This is because in the real world businesses know that human memory is very short, and people will eventually forget that such a smear campaign for brand X even occurred.
On the other hand, the internet never forgets. Such information will become a permanent record; always just a click away from being (re)discovered.
It is up to the affected brands to do something, otherwise current and potential customers will continue to find these negative reviews and base their next purchasing decision on them.
Negative feedback is nothing new, and it happens everywhere.
But in some instances, your closest competitor(s) may push for high visibility of negative information about your brand.
It is easy to trace if it is a competitor, because if it is a competitor the claims made sometimes do not come off as genuine.
And if it is not a competitor, it is very difficult to identify the person behind a smear campaign. Any attempt to contact that person will always hit a brick wall, because such people tend to use ghost accounts.
Corporates can take negative feedback as an opportunity to engage, respond and improve. However, when it comes to smear campaigns the negative feedback is intentionally malicious.
If it is an intentional campaign, the individual behind it will systematically try to destroy your brand.
They will consistently harass you, and post negative feedback online about your brand.
If you dig deeper, you will then realise that the person is not even an actual customer, but may only be serving a particular purpose, which is to defame your brand.
It is however, important to note that there are some genuine customers who are truly disgruntled, and have a genuine complaint against the brand.
These should not be dismissed. Rather, organisations should reach out and engage them.
In the next article, we will look on how to effectively deal with smear campaigns.
*Cresencia Marjorie Chiremba is a marketing enthusiast with a strong passion for customer service. For comments, suggestions and training, she can be reached on [email protected] or on 0712 979 461, 0719 978 335
Online Reporter