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Bad news travels fast, and social media made it multiply as fast as the speed of light and easily circulate across different social media channels. Crisis on social media is therefore a wildfire. You have the idea how uncontrollable it may get, you planned risk response, but you don’t know when it will breakout, and you don’t know who will put a match to the dilemma.

Then, the external factors, such as audiences and competitors, can easily add fuel to the fire. The fact is, common audiences perceive that what they see and read is the truth. They easily empathize without knowing the other side of the story. What’s even worse is it’s easy for your competitors to completely take advantage and wipe-out your brand’s reputation.

Before knowing how to deal with it, you must first know if you are facing a crisis and not an issue. An isolated comment on Facebook or a negative tweet from a customer isn’t counted as a crisis, unless it makes noise and already viewed by thousands (note: posts and tweets can be promoted and hashtags are harsh sometimes).
This is just a normal negative feedback, like what you receive in e-mail, phone calls, or customer surveys.

The differences lie in the details of the damage impact, time, and cost. In traditional crisis management, crisis is a neglected issue or controversy that may harm the brand, the stakeholders, and the whole organization in a long term period. Crisis can alter how the business runs, and the worst, with crisis mismanagement, it could mean the end.

Social media PR disaster is another category, which can also inflict the brand, where the person posts an inappropriate opinion, insensitive statement, early release, false reward, and the hack. Crisis, on the other hand, means a long term unified rage in the glass cage.

Read and discern these tips and things that every marketer must do before, during, and after the social media crisis.

Phase 1: Readiness

Every social media strategist must act like a lifeguard or a security officer 24/7 on surveillance. Before the crisis erupts, a good marketer must have prepared and anticipated what crisis may trigger at any time, as well as its consequences.

Tip 1: Prepare and plan

In traditional crisis management, a communication plan is done, and constantly disseminated by the corporate communications and public relations body with the internal stakeholders of the company, such as employers, c-suite managers, customer service representatives, and whatnot. Same with social media management, a communication plan in whichever platform your company own must have detailed action plan so you know what to do when you get there.

• Tip 2: Try to solve every issue

While in social media, the strategist must see to it that every issue must be recognized, every irate comment from customer isn’t neglected, and every question is answered. Crisis then originates with the issue, the smallest of details must be extinguished before it’s too late.

• Tip 3: Create a social media crisis team

Crisis cannot be handled by a single social media specialist only. Create a team that can religiously monitor social media 360 degrees. These are the people who can understand the behavior of customers, be authoritative, and have the critical mind to produce messages that can counter negative feedbacks.

• Tip 4: Maintain zero crisis history

Preserving the zero crisis status of the organization can be achieved with seamless quality service. Customers may even support you when crisis or issues spark. Constantly engaging with your followers could be a great help, too. However, accidents and rumors may still happen even in the best-regulated companies. Protect your brand from misinformation.

Phase 2: Response

Above is crucial stage that every marketer could face. During crisis, it is important to set all the social media communication strategies that your team has planned.

• Tip 5: Find where it started

Spot the first post or tweet that ignited the crisis. Then do your first countermove in that social media channel, so to avoid the spreading of the issue in other platforms.

• Tip 6: Recognize

Make people know that you are aware of the crisis. Update them regularly on the changes or actions that the company is doing. Silence is a form of feedback from you, and it can be interpreted vaguely. Speak and defend your side in the most polite way.

• Tip 7: Monitor

Listen on your audiences’ complains and rants; read and record them. Track how big it gets every day, or until when it will last. Watch out for pages that may be created against you. These can be one of the propagandas of your business rival.

• Tip 8: Never backfire and add insult

Don’t add fuel to the fire and create another issue from a crisis. Antagonizing and backfiring is like airing your dirty linen in public. In lieu, create an authoritative image implying that the company could stand still despite the crisis.

• Tip 9: Don’t point to others

…because there are four pointing back at yourself. You cannot blame anyone else. Own up, apologize, and mean it.

• Tip 10: Don’t publicize everything

Two or three comments could be enough, then, don’t hesitate to send them a direct message. It would look unprofessional if you will keep on answering on threads and comment boxes. Also, know when to go offline, and talk personally to the persons violated or offended.

• Tip 11: Stop all promotions

Pause your lined-up promotional posts. Ads could irritate social media users more.

Phase 3: Recovery

As the saying goes, everyone can suddenly have their own “15 minutes of fame.” Popularity can disappear as fast as it came. Fortunately, the attention span of people doesn’t last, and other issues piling up could divert the attention of the community.

• Tip 13: Experience = Learning

Take it positively. Think of what happened from the beginning up to this phase. Did the situation teach you something? You’ve made it, but you have a half way more to go—to reconstruct your brand and image, and retain your social media presence.

Conclusion

Although it is always said that threats could be an opportunity, there are dozens of repercussions and drawbacks your brand can face in the future.

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