Social media is a great tool to help build brand visibility and interact with customers on a public platform. However, keep in mind that it’s a conversation medium—not a place to whitewash your image. People expect brands to be human, which means the occasional mistake is bound to happen, yet there is still an inherent fear of permanent reputation damage on social channels. Companies are afraid that something bad will be forever captured via a screenshot or a social update, bringing down a firestorm of bad press that ruins the brand’s reputation for all time. As a result, knee-jerk apologies too often are the first response.
Take airlines, for example. Data gathered by Unmetric shows US Airways and American Airlines lead in the number of tweets that contained apologies. But when trying to engage with customers and humanize their brand, businesses may be doing more harm than good in constantly apologizing. When companies issue an apology for a split-second decision made on social media, they admit culpability. If they apologize too soon, they may be drawing negative attention to themselves from people who otherwise would have not paid attention had a friend not retweeted the apology or shared blog posts criticizing the response.