Social media force transparency

Social media has changed the way companies do business because it allows businesses to establish relationships with customers, leverage social pressure to affect purchasing decisions and target advertising with the wealth of information users provide about themselves.

While these changes can have positive effects on business brand recognition and sales, social media can also have a series of negative consequences for businesses and force transparency.

Social media force transparency

Two of the world’s biggest beer makers, Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors, where forced to post online what’s inside the bottles of Budweiser and Miller Lite, after pressure from a food blogger.

Vani Hari, known as the “Food Babe”, started an online petition urging Anheuser-Busch and Chicago-based MillerCoors to disclose a full set of ingredients for consumers to see. While food and drinks have strict nutrition labeling standards, beer, wine and pure alcohol are generally not required to list every ingredient.

Within 24 hours the petition received over 43.000 signatures and gained mainstream media exposure. Social media was taken by a storm of concerned citizens asking the beer companies to publish their ingredients online.

The two companies was forced to post the ingredients of some of their most popular brands and promised to be more transparent in the future.

What ingredients are used in your beer?

Both companies said that they are not required to list ingredients, but are doing so voluntarily because customers want it.

It’s pretty amazing that social media can change the policies of a multi-billion dollar company overnight.

Short URL & title:
Social media force transparency — https://www.torbenrick.eu/t/r/pax
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