
21 Jan Social Media Crisis 101
“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face” – Mike Tyson
One of the most common concerns regarding Social Media is how little control you have over the conversation about your brand. Once content is being created and posted, it is up to the market to respond to what you have just put out.
In most cases, you know exactly where the content is going. You’ll know who will see it, when they see it, and most likely, you have an expected response from your community. Occasionally, content can go terribly wrong and worst of all, it may go viral for the wrong reasons. While you cannot possibly prevent things that are out of your control, here are some basic tips to get you prepared:
- Crisis Management Plan – Most companies have a crisis management plan – now extend that to Social Media and every form of outgoing communication. One person, or his/her team, must establish all the facts so that decision makers (business owners, executives, or top stake holders) can make a decision in response to crisis.
- Public Relations Plan – Roles need to be clearly defined at the time of crisis. Who is drafting the messages? Who approves communication before posting? and where will you be posting?
- Training and Simulation – Having a plan in place is not enough. Employees, especially those in the Marketing/Social Media team must be trained incase of an emergency.
Educating all your employees about the risk and benefits of social media will help prevent a crisis from happening. We suggest running annual training and bi-annual simulation so that each person knows exactly what to do if a situation begins to escalate.
Remember, there’s no such thing as a “local crisis”, anything on the internet is fair game to every connected corner of the world. As they always say, better safe than sorry.