Attention CEOs: 5 Tips To Crisis-Proof Your Brand Image
Briefly

Maintaining a strong brand has become harder than building one because social media creates transparency and disperses control over public perception. Customers, employees, partners and suppliers now exert significant influence, and a single viral post can rapidly damage reputation. Trust and credibility are essential across B2B and B2C and directly affect growth, loyalty, sales cycles and advertising spend. A positive brand image reduces acquisition costs by creating demand before sales efforts. Organizations should adopt proactive strategies, formalize and consistently act on core values, and prepare crisis plans to protect their image and respond swiftly when issues arise.
Press releases, media appearances and community engagement used to be the sole factors that determined public perception. Companies controlled the message, content and virtually everything known to the public about their operations, leadership and point of view on issues. Today, all of that has changed. Social media has brought incredible transparency to corporate branding, for better or worse. Now, your customers, employees, business partners and suppliers seemingly all have equal influence over your brand image.
In both B2B and B2C, trust and credibility are more important than ever. The value of a positive brand image might be intangible, but it's also indispensable for driving business growth and can have a direct impact on the bottom line. Besides bolstering loyalty and shortening the sales cycle, a strong brand means you can spend less on advertising since the hardest part is already done: You've built demand; now you just need to close the deal.
Read at Forbes
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