Every quarter ICUC hosts a month-long series dedicated to one topic in the social media space. It’s a New Year, and a time for resolutions and hope: so get your social strategy in shape with our first ever “Boot Camp.” Just like a personal trainer, we’ll provide daily content to motivate, inspire, and educate both brands and social media professionals on everything SoMe. Best practices, tips, platform knowledge, tools you can use, advice and insight based on our expertise and experience – we’ll be sharing it all with you, everyday here at Snoo.ws. We hope you’ll stay tuned throughout the month!
Despite your best efforts a social media crisis can happen. When it does, how do you clean up the virtual mess without major damage to your brand reputation and alienation of your fan base?
Negativity about your brand can spread like crazy on any of the social media platforms, especially on Twitter and Facebook. According to Beyond Philosophy, “40% of the people who complain also comment via social media.” If this was true in 2010, you can imagine how much more so it is two years later with the increase in social media use.
It’s important to quickly respond and act in the face of a social media crisis before damage is done to your brand reputation and the fallout is reflected in a diminishing fan base. You should already have a management plan in place to help prevent a crisis from happening as much as possible and within your control.
Here are some important steps you can take once a crisis has occurred and to prevent a second one due to a slow or unwise response to the initial crisis.
1. Company Acknowledgement
It’s important to let people know that you are aware of the problem and working on finding out more about it as well as providing a solution. This lets them know you care about their feelings and want the best outcome. The sooner you do this the better, otherwise it can look like you don’t care or are unaware, which does nothing for customer confidence in your brand.
2. Company Representative
Someone from the top people in your organization needs to be the company representative appointed to deal with the media and/or social media users in the face of a crisis. It not only provides a good example, but also lets people know that the issue is important to the company.
3. Crisis Hub
Set up a place where the discussion can continue away from the social media platforms. Direct people to your website or a special forum or page where they can find out more about what is going on and continue to respond. This is the place where you can provide information that has to do with the management of the crisis.
4. Content Control
Respond to user content with respect and calmness. Address the issues and be consistent. Users will generally not lose confidence in your brand if you are attentive and they understand you are seeking to resolve the issues. Apologize if needed, provide solutions and encourage communication.
5. Continuing Communication
As a caution, do not in anyway speak or post any negative comments directed at users or employees. This will only generate more crises. Do take steps to show how you plan to prevent this from happening or what you will implement to solve the issue that caused the crisis in the first place.
In conclusion, keep monitoring the situation, communicate with your customers, and you should have a positive ending to the crisis and invaluable experience for the future.