How Social Identity May Matter Most in Brand Crisis Management

Social media allows customers to easily create their own community. Using social identity theory, we are able to explain important characteristics of these communities. These characteristics can be both beneficial and harmful to a company, depends on a situation. We are particularly interested in a crisis situation when company´s decisions are critical to its reputation and even its survival. Our case study is the project of the Japanese company that planned to organize the concert of the music band with an aim to promote its brand and increase its customers. We had been cooperating with this company to promote the concert to fan community in Twitter. As we deploy our communication strategies to the community, we encountered several problems. These problems are discussed based on social identity theory and are concluded as practices that are open for future development and investigation. We propose that an effect of perceived in-group and out-group membership generate a resistance from community members when the company, which is identified as an out-group, tries to promote the concert in the community. The company may reduce this resistance by creating a bridge between itself and the community. This bridge can be done by cooperating with some community members. We also found that many of community members create another account, separated from their personal account, only for communication with other fans. This fact helps the company reduces its budget and human resource required to monitor the community, and enable the company to define more effective strategies. Finally, using all practices that are presented, the company can finally achieve its goals. From our case study, we suggest several points for future systematic studies.