“In recent years there has been a growing tendency to criticize brands -the pinkwashingthe Rainbowwashing– I think it is important for companies to position themselves, it is not about doing less, but about doing more. It is not that the companies do not change the avatar, but it is insufficient”, says David González Natal, partner and general director of the northern region of LLYC. “One of the recommendations is to seasonally adjust the conversation. One of my hypotheses is that companies are mostly positioned in the pride, because they have little to tell”, says the manager.
To carry out the study, LLYC mapped the 25 companies with the most followers on Twitter in each of the markets in which it operates (Spain, Mexico, United States, Portugal, Latin America) and analyzed their conversation during the last three years. In total, 78,000 messages were analyzed.
In the last three years, company conversation (which encompasses messages from brands, company CEOs and user responses) increased 17.7% in 2020 and 3.2% in 2021. However, social conversation decreased 64.4% in 2020 and 17.5% in 2021. “It is something that makes sense, because there has been no prides parade physical, which generate a lot of conversation”, explains González.
Even though companies’ conversation increased, their messages only represent 0.46% of the total conversation, a very low representation. Worse still, within the company conversation, only 1.5% are proactive; 0.2% is generated by their CEOs and 98% are messages from users on this topic directed at companies.
While CEO conversation is very low, it has grown 5% in recent years. “It’s like a ray of hope that they are realizing that company leaders need to position themselves. They must be more proactive, give messages from the personal self”, comments González.
The topic in which the conversation is positioned the most is about the trans community. According to the study, in 2021, company CEOs focused 48.9% of their messages on the trans community; while companies and their brands dedicated 36% of their conversation to this topic. Both figures are well above what is generated in society, where only 16% of messages are focused on the trans community.
“That is a most positive surprise. It is about getting out of generic messages to go to specific things that are pain points for the group, where companies have a lot to add, because one of the big problems is the lack of social and labor inclusion”, says González.