Crafting a social media crisis communication plan is critical for the success of your organization’s response to any type of issue or crisis. It can help you avoid making common mistakes that can damage your brand’s reputation and credibility.
Start by identifying the problem, understanding its risks and potential impacts and determining your stakeholders. Once you have a clear idea of who needs to be informed, draft a plan that aligns with your organization’s goals and policies.
Identifying the Problem
A social media crisis can be a major setback for any business, and it’s important to take steps to prevent it from happening. One tweet can have a huge impact on your brand’s reputation and can cost you money in the long run, especially if it’s negative or sexist.
The first thing you need to do is identify the problem. This isn’t as simple as determining what caused the incident, but you need to understand what the problem was and how it could affect your brand.
Having an idea of what’s happening and who is involved is key for developing your crisis communication plan. You’ll want to include executive leadership, customer-facing departments and any support or contact center positions that need to be aware of the situation and provide information or answers when they’re needed.
It’s also crucial to create a crisis FAQ that can be accessed on your website or social media. This will help you answer questions as they arise and ensure your customers are always up to date on your progress.
Understanding the Risks & Potential Impacts
Managing social media crises can be a stressful and overwhelming experience. That’s why it’s important to understand the risks and potential impacts of your social media crisis communications plan before you start to implement it.
One of the biggest risks that can affect your crisis communication plan is a negative reaction by your target audience. This is why it’s important to create a plan that will allow you to react quickly and effectively.
Another risk that you should keep in mind is the potential for rumors and misinformation to spread rapidly online. In order to prevent this, you should detail who on your team will be responsible for creating fact sheets about the crisis and set a deadline for when these sheets are ready.
When a crisis happens, it’s important to reflect on the experience and see how you can improve your business. This is an opportunity to review the crisis communication plan and update it with what you’ve learned. It’s also a great way to bring different teams together to share their experiences and insights.
Determining the Stakeholders & Target Audiences
Identifying the stakeholders and target audiences for a social media crisis communication plan is critical. These audiences will ask questions, request information and make judgments about your business, product or service based on the information you share.
Each audience is unique and will want to hear something different. You’ll need to script messages that are specific to each group so you can address their concerns.
You’ll also need to know who will be responsible for identifying potential crises and monitoring social media. This is a complex process and needs a team that’s capable of taking charge in the moment.
This team should include the right executives to enforce decisions, manage social media and coordinate with others in the organization. You’ll also need people who can act as media spokespersons.
A savvy organization will track social conversations in real-time to understand the volume, sentiment and inflection points. These insights can help them develop a more targeted messaging strategy and empower their team to adjust quickly as the crisis unfolds. With social listening tools, they can export these insights to report back to leadership with high-level takeaways and examples of the conversation.
Developing the Key Messages
A social media crisis is any event that negatively impacts your brand’s reputation — and when it happens, you often have little to no warning. It’s important to have a plan in place to help your team respond efficiently and effectively.
Developing the key messages for your social media crisis communication plan is one of the most important aspects to consider when creating a plan. These messages will help people understand what your brand is going through and encourage them to stay involved in the process.
In addition to developing the message, you must consider who will receive this message during a crisis. This may include executive leadership, support staff and customers.
When drafting your plan, make sure it includes an approval process for messages. This can help ensure that everyone in your company knows the messaging and understands it before it goes live on your social media channels.
Once your crisis is over, you should conduct a post-mortem to learn what worked and what didn’t. This can help you develop new strategies for the future. It can also be a great opportunity to gather feedback from your audience and use it to improve your business.
Setting Up Your Platforms & Tools
A social media crisis communication plan can help you avoid issues like a bad customer experience by providing the necessary steps for your marketing and communications teams to take. This document should include guidelines for identifying the problem, determining who to alert, and how to react.
The right tools can also help you manage the influx of messages that are often associated with a crisis. For example, Sprout Social’s collision detection tool prevents team members from working on multiple conversations at the same time and ensures they respond to each message with the appropriate level of urgency.
Another important tool is a social media scheduler. A scheduling tool like Hootsuite allows you to pause scheduled posts in the event of a crisis without disrupting your audience.
Finally, ensure your social accounts are protected against security breaches and unauthorized access. Weak passwords and shared account access can lead to a cyber crisis, negatively impacting your brand’s reputation and credibility.
Drafting Your Response Plan
A social media crisis can be a real disaster if not managed correctly. That’s why it’s vital to draft your response plan before anything happens, so you can respond quickly and effectively.
You should also take this opportunity to create a communication plan for all your employees. It’s important to keep everyone in the loop during a crisis. It will help to quell any questions that might come up and prevent your team from getting into arguments with social media users who aren’t sure what’s happening or how to handle it.
Once you’ve drafted your social media crisis communication plan, it’s time to put it into action. Start by identifying the issue and where it originated from.
This will help you to determine the appropriate platform for your social media campaign. It can also help you to ensure that your messages reach all the right audiences.
It’s also a good idea to put your social media crisis communications on dark sites so that people don’t have access to them until the issue has been resolved. These sites can contain pre-made resources such as messages from the CEO or hotline contacts and blank parts to fill in with the crisis details.
Monitoring
Once you have a crisis communication plan in place, it’s important to monitor and refine it. You can do this by assessing after-action reports and updating your plan as needed.
You can also use social media monitoring to identify negative content that is spreading online and affecting your brand. For example, our media monitoring tool uses image recognition to find mentions of your brand in posts that contain visuals, such as photos or videos.
If you see a post that reflects poorly on your brand, it’s essential to take action immediately. It’s also critical to respond calmly and resolve any discussion in an effort to avoid further damage to your reputation.
It’s a good idea to establish an escalation team, which includes representatives from different departments within your company or agency. The team should have specific responsibilities, such as managing public relations communications and drafting a statement.
Evaluating
After a crisis, it’s important to take stock of the situation and determine if there’s anything you can do to improve your social media crisis management plan. This will help you better protect your brand in the future and give you a chance to learn from any mistakes.
It’s also essential to make sure your team has the resources they need. For example, ensure your employees have up-to-date and detailed contact information on their personal and branded accounts.
You may also want to consider a chatbot as a way to streamline common customer inquiries, which can free up time for your social media teams to handle more complicated issues. However, a chatbot can’t substitute for a human connection, so it’s important to have the right team in place.
Once you’ve determined the best solution for your company, create a crisis communication plan that details your response. This will ensure that everyone knows what they should be doing and how to get the word out in a timely fashion. It can even include a crisis flowchart that specifies who should be contacted in different situations.
