The power of Twitter : a content analysis study of public pressure on corporate communication and crisis management

Abstract

In academic research as well as in the industry, there is little doubt about the potential impact of social media on any brand and its equity or reputation. While this impact or effect cannot always be fully quantified, it seems clear from relevant studies that the full bearing of negative social media posts or reports can potentially have devastating effects on any organisation or company and their brand. This study aims to explore the impact, effects and consequences experienced by South African organisation, Momentum, on Twitter between 18 and 22 November 2018, following its decision not to pay out the life insurance policy of Nathan Ganas. Mr Ganas died in a botched hijacking in his driveway during November 2018. Consequently, Momentum refused to pay out his life insurance policy based on the grounds of non-disclosure of a pre-existing medical condition. Momentum faced severe backlash for this decision on Twitter, and public opinion suggested that nondisclosure of a medical condition was irrelevant to Mr Ganas’s cause of death. For the purpose of this research, a corpus of 2 442 direct tweets to Momentum between 18 to 22 November 2018 is explored to better understand how the pressure faced by Momentum attributed to the organisation’s about-turn announcement to pay out the life insurance policy of the late Mr Ganas. A qualitative content analysis, design and methodology is used to reveal critical factors such as key words, hashtags, popular Twitter handles contributions and a description of the critique on Momentum. This fierce social media storm reveals valuable lessons pertaining to crisis communication management that can be adopted by other companies and organisations. What is known from a huge collection of published studies, is that the popularity and growth of social media platforms have undoubtedly changed the nature of Public Relations (PR) practice. It is thus vital for all organisations and practitioners to understand how to effectively harness these social media platforms for crisis communication, as it forms an increasing part of how internal and external stakeholders interact and communicate. The prominent findings of this case study emphasised proactiveness, engagement and the importance of following due diligence. The research analysed further highlights the importance of understanding your audience and social listening. Momentum’s main focus and crisis communication unfortunately revolved around its decision not to pay out the insurance policy – it was thus purely based on financial and economic objectives. As is often the case, humanitarian interests clash with financial decisions. The online and public community connected with Mrs Ganas on an emotional level, and applied an enormous amount of pressure the organisation, who failed to address the ethical and humane element, as well as the lack of empathy in its crisis communication. Exploring this case study highlights the importance of understaning social media as a communication tool, as well as its power. Although an organisation’s reputation is built over time, Momentum’s crisis emphasised how quickly and easily an organisation’s reputation can be tarnished. It appears that Momentum did not fully preempt the effect that the crisis would have on its reputation. A number of international case studies prove how failure to understand emerging crises trends via social media will have detrimental and even disastrous consequences for companies and organisations across the globe. Aaker emphasises that brand loyalty and equity are not commodities that can be remedied quickly once it is lost. Business leaders and public relations practitioners, and even people working in marketing and branding need to educate themselves and practice how to manage and harness the social media – like Twitter – in their favour, as it is evident that crisis management cannot be addressed anymore with traditional media and public relations methods and management only.