Social media’s first big battle

This battle will play out in a political arena first, but it has obvious implications for business, individuals and advocacy groups. The operative question – whether a candidate or individual can define themselves in positive terms through social media before a negative one is forced on them from the outside – could apply just as easily to a company facing prosecution or a hostile takeover bid. Presidential politics just happen to provide the biggest public laboratory.

 With today’s social media tools, Tyco could have seeded facts with bloggers that would have filtered out to investors and the mainstream press. The image of a fundamentally sound company with a few rogue executives would have insulated it from the full brunt of shareholder uncertainty that eroded its value during the Kozlowski period. My theory is that social media personae cannot prevent mass market media images from knocking a few points from a company’s value or a candidate’s polling numbers, at least temporarily. It can, however, limit the damage, shorten the bad times, and help the company recover sooner. Until now, mass media images have appeared on a largely blank canvas. In the social media era, they’ll have to compete for space. November will be the test of how much competition social media offers.