A brand’s digital reputation is built with a lot of effort, planning, content creation and audience relationships – work that can take weeks, months or even years. However, in this highly online world we live in, a positive image can be destroyed in a matter of minutes. Therefore, Crisis Management on Social Media is an essential strategy in the daily life of companies and communication professionals.
All brands that decide to invest in a digital presence need to be aware that they may be subject to negative reactions and comments on the internet and social media. Crisis management seeks to prevent, monitor and solve problems that could otherwise permanently affect a business.
There is no magic formula for facing a crisis, but there are tried and tested steps for dealing with it in the best possible way, ensuring your brand is protected. In this article, we will provide some tips that will help you to create a strategic plan for avoiding, and solving, a crisis.
It is very difficult to predict exactly when and how a crisis will affect your company, but it is possible to have control over factors that may turn into problems in the future. The best way to manage a crisis is to anticipate it.
The first step communication professionals should follow is to take care not to involve their brands in online controversy. Discussions and topics that do not add value to the company in question should be avoided at all costs, so as to minimise damage to its image and reputation.
The second step is to analyse and map each of the companies’ areas of vulnerability, and contact the relevant teams to resolve these issues internally. If this isn’t possible, solutions for these setbacks need to be brainstormed in advance, and put into practice as soon as the crisis erupts.
The third step is to carry out constant brand monitoring on social media, paying attention to what customers, followers, press, competitors and even haters are saying about the company in question. This makes it possible to quickly identify problems and react to them assertively, thus preventing them from escalating into a crisis.
Not every crisis can be predicted or anticipated, no matter how important. Therefore, it is essential that all professionals and companies make a detailed and complete action plan to circumvent problems that may arise. Check out our six tips for managing crises on social media:
- Create a management plan: before a crisis hits, companies need to set out a plan for dealing with such a situation. Choose a spokesperson, offer them media training, prepare a crisis response team, create a document with the people to be contacted in case of an emergency, and establish the standard procedures for dealing with the problem.
- Identify the beginning of the crisis: circumventing a crisis depends on identifying how it started: whether it was a problem with a product or service, a misguided speech by a spokesperson or company statement, customer dissatisfaction, or even fake news. Establishing what triggered the crisis will make it easier to resolve.
- Act fast: speed can define which course the crisis will take. The company should respond to the problem nimbly and transparently in order to control the narrative. If not, users will take what is being posted on social media for granted, without giving the brand a chance to respond. The longer the delay, the greater the reputational damage.
- Align communication: Responding to the crisis in the right place is crucial. If the problem began on Instagram, that’s where you should position yourself initially. There is no point in releasing a statement to traditional media outlets, or on Facebook, for example, if that isn’t where the crisis originated. Professionals should then monitor other social media platforms, and position the brand accordingly if necessary.
- Know how to acknowledge mistakes: showing humility during a moment of crisis is essential. Having identified the cause of the problem, act transparently and acknowledge the mistake, apologising for what took place. This increases the odds of your company being forgiven, rather than cancelled, by the online community.
- Conduct post-crisis analysis: once the tsunami has subsided, take the time to learn from the crisis, to avoid it happening again. Analyse the company’s mistakes and successes, recognize the impacts that the crisis may have in the long term, and start a recovery plan to recover the brand’s image and credibility. In addition, starting a Community Management strategy can be of great value, strengthening the company’s relationship with the public and closely monitoring their opinions and criticisms.
Evidently, dealing with a crisis on social media is not easy, and requires a lot of dedication, attention and training. But even with all that work, making mistakes is more common than we think. Therefore, we have compiled a list of the most common mistakes which should be avoided at all costs:
- Not creating a management plan in advance — this delays the crisis response and can cause irreparable damage to a company’s reputation.
- Never lie to your audience — this can make the crisis situation even worse.
- Don’t be arrogant or pick fights with followers — be humble and accept criticism.
- Never ignore or delay your response to a crisis — it will not go away on its own.
- Don’t act emotionally — think rationally and devise a cohesive strategy to solve the problem.
One of the most famous cases of crisis management on social media involved Starbucks, whose image was seriously affected in 2018 following a racist incident in one of its cafés in Philadelphia.
Two black men asked to use the bathroom; their request was denied on the grounds that it was for customers only, and they hadn’t purchased anything. The two men said they were waiting for a friend, but an employee insisted they leave the store. When they refused, they were handcuffed and taken away by the police. A customer on the scene recorded the entire incident, and the video went viral on social media, igniting a major racial discrimination crisis.
Starbucks followed the cues of good crisis management on social media. They swiftly apologised for what happened, the employee in question was fired and the company’s CEO met with the two men who were arrested, to apologise in person.
Another strategy carried out by the company, which reflected positively on its image, was to close all 8,000 of its US stores for an entire afternoon, so that its thousands of employees could undergo training in how to combat racist behaviour.
It is important to emphasise that none of the tips presented in this article, or even the solutions identified by Starbucks, should be considered as fixed rules. Companies and communication professionals should always aim to adapt their crisis response to the audience which they are looking to reach.
The strategies adopted in Brazil, for example, may be different from those best suited for Mexico. Likewise, tactics applied on Facebook may not work on TikTok, and vice versa. Therefore, it is essential to plan for Crisis Management on Social Media, and to solve each crisis in a personalised, assertive way.
