Your brand is facing controversy. How can you use influencers to reshape public opinion in your favor?

To reshape public opinion during a brand controversy, strategically use influencers. Choose those who align with your brand’s values and have strong credibility. Communicate transparently, sharing the situation, your response, and actions taken. Encourage influencers to highlight positive aspects of your brand, including human interest stories and community involvement. Facilitate open dialogue through influencer-led discussions, and showcase new initiatives or changes. Leverage influencer content for positive testimonials and monitor feedback to adjust strategies as needed. Consistent messaging and follow-through will help rebuild trust.

Collaborating with influencers can be an effective strategy to reshape public opinion. However, no one can tell a brand's story better than the brand itself or its leader. While influencers may or may not align with public sentiment, the impact largely depends on the narrative you choose to pursue. An authentic and trustworthy message comes directly from the brand's leader, rather than from an influencer hired to sway opinions.

Identify influencers whose values align with your brand and who maintain a positive public image. Collaborate with those who genuinely support your brand, ensuring they can authentically advocate for you. Their established credibility and broad reach can help shift public opinion by providing a trustworthy voice that reinforces your brand’s message.

A marketing strategy that utilizes promotions through influencers can change the image of the brand. Of course, this is influenced by the profile or image shown by the influencer. So it can change the audience's perspective. However, this must be supported by how the influencer influences their followers to use the brand. So, with honesty on the part of the brand and with support from influencers, it gives a sincere impression to the public.

Crafting the message is the most crucial part of the brand strategy. Every word is pregnant with a meaning hence evaluating the messaging becomes the most important part of the stratergy.

I would prefer to start by crafting a clear and sincere message that acknowledges the controversy and outlines the steps your brand is taking to address it. Influencers can then personalize and amplify this message, using their storytelling skills to humanize your brand and connect with their audience. This approach helps turn a corporate response into a relatable narrative, which can rebuild trust and encourage public support.

It is in such moments of controversy that public opinion needs to be reshaped through the right messaging placed by influencers. Make messages that are transparent, empathetic, and capable of finding a solution. The messages should touch on the controversy but underline how committed the brand is to making a positive change. One should always work with the influencers to ensure that the message comes across genuinely, in their style of voice, for relatability to the targeted audience. This can be achieved by humanizing the brand, rebuilding lost trust, and shifting the narrative to a more constructive one by sharing behind-the-scenes insights, the corrective actions, and the new vision through the influencers.

Messaging is key! Great stories connect with audiences quickly. But how does one become a great storyteller online where the audiences can be so fickle? Here are my lessons from personal experience. Be Authentic: You will need to get a little vulnerable in sharing your truth. Your audiences need to see the real you and true stories connect fast because they resonate with similar audience experiences. It's called having skin in the game. Keep it Simple: Don't complicate your offering and delivery. Pick topical issues that you are familiar with and share your interactions. Audience Participation: Get them involved in Co-Storytelling with you. Encourage community feedback and alsways respond to each commnet posted. Consistency is Key!

Develop a clear, transparent, and consistent message addressing the controversy directly. Align the message with your brand’s core values and ensure it resonates with your target audience. Work closely with influencers to ensure they understand the message and can convey it authentically to their followers, enhancing credibility and relatability.

Keep these in mind: Choose Authentic Influencers: Partner with influencers who genuinely align with your brand values. For example, after a crisis, Pepsi collaborated with socially conscious influencers to rebuild trust and promote positive messages. Craft Authentic Messages: Ensure influencers communicate sincere, transparent messages addressing the issue. Nike utilized athletes like Colin Kaepernick to convey their commitment to social justice, turning controversy into support. Leverage Influencers' Platforms for Dialogue: Use influencers to foster open conversations with their followers. When Dove faced backlash, they engaged influencers to discuss beauty standards and inclusivity, turning criticism into constructive dialogue.

Plan the release of your message strategically. Leverage influencers to share your message during peak engagement times. Coordinate the release across multiple platforms to maximize reach and maintain a consistent narrative. This amplifies your message and ensures it reaches a wide audience, helping to reshape public opinion effectively.

Plan the release of the influencer content strategically. This could involve coordinated posts across various platforms to maximize reach and impact. Timing is crucial – aim to release the content when your audience is most active and receptive.

At the core of any controversy, there lies the reshuffling of public opinion through well-timed influencer content releases. Everything is about timing. Partner with influencers in timing their releases at key moments when interest is at its peak and before false information can become the topic of discussion. Then, put up a mix of platforms and formats to get maximum reach and engagement—think along the lines of Instagram posts, YouTube videos, or live Q&A sessions. Staggered posting of influencer content ensures that brand visibility is present throughout and gives more nuance to the brand's response. In fact, it will let the brand be more in control of the narrative, address concerns, and pivot public sentiment progressively in its favor

I call this the power of Extended Reach. This simply means that the Influencers you hire to build the value you require have audiences that can become yours by virtue of the borrowed association. Leverage this association while it lasts so that even after the crisis is over, the audiences will remain glued to your social footprint because you offered authentic value instead of burying your head in the sand. Social Media Content is Fleeting Because of the Sheer Numbers Involved. Billions of Followers each posting unique content or reposting from others makes the online news cycle very short. So learn to ride out whatever storm you are facing. It will pass very quickly at that. Just be prepared. Having a #CrisisPlan in place helps.

Encourage influencers to actively engage with their followers, addressing questions and concerns transparently. Listen to the feedback from the community and use it to refine your strategy. Genuine engagement demonstrates that your brand values customer opinions and is committed to making necessary changes, fostering trust and loyalty.

Encourage influencers to engage with their followers about the controversy. They can host Q&A sessions, live chats, or create discussion threads to address concerns and provide a platform for open dialogue. This helps in building transparency and trust.

Use analytics to track the impact of the influencer campaign. Measure engagement, sentiment, and reach to assess how public opinion is shifting. Monitor social media and other platforms to stay informed about the reception of your message and to identify any emerging issues. This ensures you stay proactive and responsive.

Use social media monitoring tools to track the impact of the influencer campaign. Measure metrics such as engagement rates, sentiment analysis, and changes in public opinion. This data will help you understand how the message is being received and whether it’s shifting public perception.

Be prepared to adapt your strategy based on feedback and data collected. If the initial message isn’t resonating as expected, collaborate with influencers to tweak the approach. Continuous evolution and responsiveness to public sentiment will maintain the campaign’s effectiveness and further restore public trust, ensuring long-term success.

Based on the feedback and data collected, be ready to adapt your strategy. If certain aspects of the message aren’t resonating, adjust them. Continually evolving your approach ensures that you stay responsive to public sentiment and can effectively manage the controversy.

In the event of a brand controversy, using influencers to adapt and evolve the brand's messaging is quite important in winning back public trust. Influencers can underscore that a brand is willing to listen, learn, and make meaningful changes. By openly admitting to past mistakes and being committed to betterment, an influencer may display the real-time evolution of a brand. This approach does not only deal with immediate concerns but sets a brand as resilient and responsive. Through continuous collaborations, the ability of the influencer to update their audiences as to what the brand is doing, would retell a story of growth, building once again that sense of loyalty consumers should have in a brand.

As an intern at KK Supermart Holdings, I understand the importance of managing brand perception, especially during the recent "Allah's sock" controversy. Leveraging influencers can be a strategic way to reshape public opinion. I would identify credible influencers who resonate with our target audience and have strong community ties. They can communicate our sincere apology, clarify misunderstandings, and highlight our commitment to rectifying the issue. By creating content that addresses the controversy while showcasing our positive actions, we can rebuild trust and steer public sentiment back in our favor.

It's important to remember that while influencers can be extremely effective at reshaping public opinion in your favor, good PR is not a substitute for ethically operating the company itself. Customers will forgive mistakes (even the mightiest corporations make them), but they will be far less accommodating toward companies that repeatedly violate their trust.

Controversies are of 2 types: Short, topical ones and more troublesome longstanding ones. No brand cam afford the second type. A quick acknowledgement and corrective action works wonders to dispel doubts. Where the controversy has 2 sides and you are on a strong footing to explain your point of view, influencers help and a plan, identifying allies n Influencers, listening, engaging, monitoring and adapting works.

If you're on the fence about whether or not to engage influencers to help reshape public opinion, remember that people don't trust brands or companies. People trust people. Well selected influencers will be worth their weight in gold.