Managing brand crisis caused by unfounded rumors on social media: effective corporate communication strategies and time frame applications

Sammanfattning: Purpose: To examine which communication strategy is effective and should be adopted when organizations face brand crises generated by the spread of unfounded rumors on social media. Methodology: This study was based on secondary data, based on the comparison of different case studies. Findings: Since the spread of unfounded rumors through social media represents a new threat and can lead to brand crisis, we recommend companies to face the problem following a three-step approach. Originality/Value: While certain crises could be avoided by monitoring internal and external information from the managerial perspective, crises generated by the spread of unfounded rumors on social media most of the time are unpredictable. Nevertheless, they can be identified in their early stages. Therefore, to contribute to the expansion of academic knowledge, this paper considers three different fields of study: brand management, crisis management, and social media communication theories have been compared to expand the concept of brand crisis management.