How to Handle a Social Media Crisis Like a Pro
No matter if your brand is large or small, companies with social media profiles should have an actionable crisis management plan.
Let’s pretend you manage social media for a company called Jane Doe Eats:
Someone leaves a rude comment on a Jane Doe Eats Instagram post. Okay, not a big deal.
You had a minor health code violation at one of the physical locations of Jane Doe Eats, and there are a handful of tweets about it. Eh, let’s make sure to get on that.
The CEO of your brand made a massive, controversial statement on Facebook and now #BoycottJaneDoeEats is trending. Uh, WHAT?!
Because of this potential, it is absolutely imperative to have a crisis management plan that everyone is on board with, from your CEO to your social media managers.
No matter the size of the business, problems and crises happen. It is important to have a communication strategy in place to effectively and efficiently respond or make a statement when needed online. Understanding and knowing who handles what, how you respond, and how every single hypothetical issue crisis can affect your business in the long run can help you mitigate the damage and assess the risk of any actions taken.
First off, your company needs to have a plan to help you out. A few initial steps include:
A social media policy
This way, everyone from the executives to frontline employees know exactly what the policy is for your company on their personal social media, so they can be prepared to take on the consequences. This will ideally deter people to post inappropriate or controversial content that ties back to your company in any way, as it is a term of their employment.
Selective access to social media accounts
Make sure the account is only given to the people who manage the accounts. Giving the password to a company’s account to someone who accidentally posts on it as their own can result in a massive crisis. Be selective and only share it with your team or trusted outsourced marketing agency (who are trained and know how to handle social media).
Social listening tools
Monitoring and listening are essential for any brand at all times, because it gives you the opportunity to see when any negative or positive brand mentions come up. There are tons of tools out there that can alert you and organize any complaints or comments in a way that you can easily respond in a uniform way. An experienced social marketing agency should have the established tools that watch every single thing that is said about your brand online, and this can be an essential thing to have.
So, when the crisis happens:
- Identify the issue and the source of it
- Categorize the issue as a problem or a crisis
- Use a flowchart or degree of severity to organize who acts or responds
We made a handy chart for you to refer to if you ever get in a social media crisis, including the broad, suggested actions to take:
Let’s go back to our original example of Jane Doe Eats, and think of a few things that could happen:
Someone leaves a rude comment on a Jane Doe Eats Instagram post. Maybe have a comment ready such as: “Hi Brett, we are bummed to hear that. We always want customer feedback and will keep improving on our products.” or maybe “Hi Allison, we are so sorry you feel this way. Send us a DM, and we can chat.” The tone should always be respectful and selfless, and not defensive at all. Do not put the blame on anyone, including your brand itself, as this may insinuate liability for something. If it is a negative opinion, there is nothing your brand can really do. If it is a negative comment on your product or service, there may be ways to improve. Primarily, these types of comments can be handled by customer service or social media managers. It is important to only delete comments that are spam; never delete negative comments that you could reply to, especially because customers could easily screenshot and show that you deleted their comment.
You had a minor health code violation at a physical location of Jane Doe Eats, and there are a handful of tweets about it. Maybe respond to those tweets, share them and make a comment, or make a small statement that it is being handled. It may be appropriate for the social media manager or customer service representative to consult their leadership on this issue to ensure the response aligns with the situation at hand. A reply or statement could say something like: “This is not something that is up to our standards, and we are making sure that location is up to par. Thank you for your patience!” Again, it is important to never delete comments or get things taken down, because the Internet is forever. It is best to respond in a professional manner to resolve the issue and make the customer feel prioritized.
The CEO of your brand made a massive, controversial statement on Facebook and now #BoycottJaneDoeEats is trending. This is where it gets tricky. Clearly, this is affecting a lot of people, especially if it is a large company with many stakeholders. A canned response is not going to cut it this time. Whoever makes the executive decisions, whether it be the Board of Directors, lawyers, or public relations professionals, will be handling that statement. Hold all promotions or regularly scheduled social media posts for now, and wait for the leadership team to decide on a statement or course of action.
While we all hope that we never have to utilize this crisis management plan, it is just like car insurance; you’ve got to have it.
This may sound intimidating or not your area of expertise. We get it. If you’d like all of the social media management off your mind, we can help with that.
Juxt Marketing is a marketing firm based in Atlanta, Georgia that can serve as your outsourced marketing partner from wherever you are. We can put our 20 years of experience in brand strategy, identity, graphic design, web development, and digital marketing to work for you. Get in touch with Juxt Marketing to let us take that off your plate.