Social Media Crisis Management

A social media crisis can impact a brand’s reputation negatively. Every business needs a social media crisis management plan.

A business should be able to identify and understand what risks and threats it would face during a social media crisis.

The threats can be internal or external, they can be customer complaints or they can be customer dissatisfaction.

Given below are steps a business should take to handle a social media crisis.

Have Social Media Policy

A company should have social media policy in place. This ensures that the employees know what they can and cannot do on social media platforms.

This would also help to protect a company’s online reputation.

When an employee has clear guidelines on what to post and what not to post it would lessen the risk of someone sending the social media profiles of an organization into a downward spiral.

A vague social media policy will lead to more employee violations.

Get Shead of Potential Issues

Content that helps to protect brand image should be posted. A company can get ahead of potential issues by using social listening.

Social listening is the method of tracking social media platforms for mentions related to a company and then analyzing them.

By listening carefully, one can understand how people feel about a brand and can make out the difference between a stray complaint and a noticeable change in attitude towards a business.

If there is a sudden increase in brand mentions, social listening will help to notice that as well.

Use Social Media Training

The staff of a company should be given social media training as that would help them to gain an insight on how to increase engagement.

The staff would also know how to reach the target audience on social media.

They would understand which social media platforms are best suited for a business and can focus on reaching business goals via social media.

Prevent Arguments

If customers post provocative comments, it is better not to engage with them. Such customers can be directed to customer relations.

Social media training would also help employees to understand how to deal with trolls who are trying to ensnare them with an argument.

Plan for the Worst

An organization should always plan for a crisis.

Each member of an organization should understand their role, from directing media inquiries to answering them, to interacting through social media content.

Having a communication strategy in place prevents the spreading of incorrect information and ensures that an organization does not prioritize opinions over facts.

Many businesses have made social media mistakes, some have jumped on trending hashtags without doing proper research on their origins while others have been careless about their comments.

To avoid this, social media content should be treated as seriously as any other channel of communication of an organization.

Using inconclusive data will only worsen the situation. The PR team of an organization should also ensure that there is a plan in place on how to respond to online backlash.

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