During my time as a social media manager, one of the most complicated problems I faced was when my customers wanted to talk about politics on social media. I am quite a politically motivated person myself, however I would never bring that into business for the main reason that it rarely serves you well.
Polarisation has been heralded by many marketers as being the thing that makes them stand out as ‘something special’ in the industry, and the ones that polarise tend to not exist for long.
The problem comes from the fact that if you support any form of ideology or take a political stance, there are people who will approve of it, but also people who will resent you for it. Some people may well become customers because of your ideology but it can box you into a corner where you end up having to talk about specific political subjects often to keep people’s interests. This means that once you’re penned into one track, it’s very hard, if not impossible for most companies to back out.
The Problem With Talking Politics For Too Long…
Political ideologies can get boring, and over time people will fade in and out of what they believe. What someone thinks tomorrow, might not always be the same as the way they think today. If you are following a set path politically, over time your audience will most likely slowly reduce, especially if you are a locally based business. This can ultimately sink your company.
Posting To Social Media
The next problem that you may find when it comes to posting on platforms like Facebook is that you will get a lot of comments and support on political posts, whereas you will get little to no interaction with business posts. Over time this means that your audience will stop seeing business posts which can ultimately lead you down the dark path of just being another political voice and losing your ability to use social media for business. This is a really dangerous thing for any business owner, considering how vital social media is.
Differing Views
Another problem that may pop up is that many people, even those that share opinions about one subject, may not share the same opinions about a different subject or topic. This is an incredibly serious issue as you may want to incorporate different political ideals into what you are posting. Nothing is worse than watching two of your best customers fighting in your comments over differing beliefs!
Let’s say you have established one political position online, it’s supported by 60% of your customer base, which is great, so you’ve kept them on board. (The rest have gone to your local rivals, most likely!) You then decide to take a slightly different position on a subject you are passionate about. Your audience may not like the new direction you are going in as a company and potentially this can lead to all sorts of problems from a drop off in attention to your posts, to people leaving your company in droves.
Backlash
One of my favorite examples of politics backfiring on a company is when Gilette released an advert on January 13th 2019 which references the #metoo movement, toxic masculinity and bullying. The advert consists of a short film called Believe and they got horrendous backlash upon its release. Gillette’s slogan, “the Best a Man can get” was replaced by “The best men can be.” The film’s subject matter created a massive divide and to this date is absolutely hated by people with a massive amount more disliking the film than liking it. Gillette as a company said that they wanted men to hold each other “accountable.” This was absolutely rejected by a huge amount of people who did not like the way they were portrayed within the advert.
You can view their advert here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koPmuEyP3a0
What happened here cost Gillette heavily. They lost customers, and really upset a lot of people by treading on toes. If they had not got involved in this way and attacked their own customer base, this would never have happened. Gillette laid out many ways to attempt to appease their freshly alienated audience, and would never have had to do so if they had never entered the arena. Whether or not you agree with the message, there’s a lot to learn from not risking a huge political backlash to your brand.
A few years before this in 2017, Pepsi released a commercial advert called “Live for Now.” Their aim was to promote the ideals of peace, unity and understanding. The advert was accused of undermining the black lives matter movement, and trivialising issues. It was shot down and attacked on social media. Kendall Jenner who appeared in the advert was subjected to a horrendous amount of abuse online from people despite clearly having no intention to hurt anyone.
Now these are two gigantic companies with massive followings which both received a tremendous amount of backlash, division and issues because of the political content of their messages. Due to the risks involved in getting political, we always advise business owners to avoid getting involved in politics, and concentrate on business. People go to a business to buy items and services, not to be told what to think and feel. It’s never worth the risk.
