Can Twitter campaigns combat online negativity?

Published February 19, 2015 at 9:32 am

It’s no secret that social media can be a mean-spirited place, and that even with its great potential, there are many who are all too ready to use it to spread hateful messages. Interestingly, brands seem to be responding to this with their Twitter campaigns, attempting to use specific hashtags to create a more positive atmosphere. Whether or not this ends up having a wide-ranging effect, this could be seen as a noble sentiment to have tied to a company’s public image.

Beauty and hygiene brand Dove is one of the organizations that’s spearheaded a Twitter trend along these lines, using a hashtag #SpeakBeautiful with the intention to combat negative remarks made on the service, specifically those that attack female body image.

Working with Twitter, the company is trying to encourage more positive conversations, and it’s doing so close to the night of the Oscar awards, a time when entertainment notoriously focus on celebrity appearances.

In a press release on the site of Unilever, the corporation that owns Dove, the brand’s director of marketing, Jennifer Bremner, explained the reason Twitter works as a natural platform for transforming “ugly” tweets into “beautiful” ones.

“Ideas and opinions about body image are now fluidly shared every second through social feeds, and sometimes we do not fully realize the resounding impact of the words in even one post,” she said. “The power to #SpeakBeautiful is in the hands of us all—we can positively change the way future generations express themselves online.”

With this as a possible inspiration, businesses should invest in marketing campaign software that brings a specific message to the most number of people, especially if that message is a positive one that could change the social media sphere for the better.