Companies responses to scandal backlash caused by social media influencers

Belinda Kintu and Karim Ben-Slimane

The purpose of this article is to identify companies' responses to scandal spillover stemming from their association with tainted social media influencers.

Introduction

With the ever-increasing use of alternative methods of marketing coupled with the popularity of social media and the appeal of influencers, many organizations have entered into partnerships with social media personalities causing the social media influencer market to grow exponentially in a very short period of time (Hajli, 2014). This growth can be attributed to densely networked virtual users, who are driving the new phenomenon, appearing to trust and rely more on peer conversations than on organizational or brand-supplied information (Shah & Jha, 2018).

When a brand partners with well-known personalities, the brand is in essence associating that person's...

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