The Impact Of Food Safety Risk Communication Strategies On Brand Trust In Social Media

In recent years,domestic food safety problems have continued to occur.From the early white plasticizers,melamine milk powder,and crash chicken incidents,to zombie meat,waste oil,and dyed steamed bread,this series of food safety crisis has seriously damaged consumers' trust in corporate branding.In the current situation of emerging network technologies and social media booming,once the company has related negative reports,it can spread quickly on social media in a short time,causing widespread concern from all walks of life.This will undoubtedly have a huge impact on corporate image and brand trust.Therefore,companies will take remedial measures as soon as possible and adopt a series of communication methods to reduce the negative impact of crisis injuries.In recent years,the crisis communication strategy chosen by the company has also received wide attention from all walks of life.However,few studies start from the sincerity of communication strategies,that is,what kind of communication is sincere and effective,so that consumers can feel the sincerity of the company;At the same time,when to response the crisis is the most appropriate,The faster the response,the more effective it is? Therefore,this paper combines crisis communication strategies with the company's first response time to study their impact on brand trust.Specifically,the three questions studied in this paper are as follows: First,to explore when in the case of a food safety injury crisis,companies use different sincerity communication strategies to communicate with consumers,whether there is a difference in the impact of consumer brand trust;The second is to explore the time when enterprises respond to crisis events for the first time,and whether they can adjust the impact of corporate communication strategies on consumer brand trust.The third is to introduce consumer perceived risk and explore whether it can mediate the common influence of communication strategy and corporate first response time on brand trust.The research results show that the corporate crisis communication strategy has a significant impact on consumer brand trust.The high sincerity communication strategy includes awareness of the crisis,apologizing,acknowledging the injury,accepting responsibility,providing reasonable explanations and asking for forgiveness.The consumer brand trust under the high sincerity communication strategy is significantly higher than the low sincerity communication strategy that does not contain the above factors.At the same time,the first response time of the company against the crisis is not the faster and more effective.When the communication strategy is in high sincerity,the response has the highest positive impact on brand trust within 12-48 hours of the crisis,and the premature response or late response to the recovery of brand trust is less than 12-48 hours response.When the communication strategy is in low sincerity,the response within 48 hours of the crisis is better than the response after 48 hours.In addition,consumer perceived risk plays a part in mediating the impact of communication strategies and first response time on consumer brand trust.This research has a certain value for the management of food safety crisis in social media environment.A new classification of high-sincere and low-sincere corporate crisis communication strategies based on the cumulative apology elements was proposed and its availability was confirmed.At the same time,according to the speed of information dissemination on social media,the first response time of corporate crisis is divided into 12 hours,12-48 hours and 48 hours later.The conclusion is that corporate response time to food safety crisis is not as sooner as better.This provides suggestions and lessons for how to achieve effective risk communication with consumers.