How to Control a Social Media Crisis: An 8-Step Plan

Panic, confusion, and irrational decisions are all words that come to mind when I think of a crisis. If you and your team are unsure of how to deal with a social media crisis, you can make mistakes that affect your brand’s reputation forever.

How to Control a Social Media Crisis: An 8-Step Plan

Follow our 8-step social media crisis management plan to ensure your team is ready to handle a social media crisis in the future. Consider our 8-steps and, afterwards, create your own social media crisis management plan that is tailored to your team and your brands’ specific needs.

Step 1: Determine If You Have a Social Media Crisis on Your Hands

It’s important to determine if you have a crisis on your hands or if it’s just a stream of negative comments or headlines. The way you should act is influenced by the scope of the situation.

Outline parameters that describe a crisis. For example, if you’re an athletic clothing brand that just launched a new line of yoga pants and receive:

Five negative tweets within the hour, there’s no need to be alarmed – not everyone is going to like your products. At this point, you should ask your social media manager to monitor the situation to see if something changes.
However, if you receive 10 or more negative tweets within the hour, there could be something wrong with your products and your crisis management plan should be executed.

Pro Tip: The definition of a ‘crisis’ varies from company to company and, over time, you will be able to create a fitting definition for your specific needs.

Step 2: Create a Crisis FAQ for Your Team

If the situation is confirmed as a crisis, inform your team members and have them refer to a social media crisis management website or a web page that explains the situation.

Your resources should include a complete list of FAQs that explain the crisis:

What are the details of the crisis? Specify what, how, when, and where the company found out about the crisis. Include photos and videos if available.
What actions have already been taken? Someone should be assigned a role to update the situation whenever something changes. This way, the entire team in on the same page.
What is the potential impact of the crisis? People tend to panic when a crisis occurs. To prepare your team for what’s coming next, inform them of the scope of the situation.
Who is responsible for dealing with the crisis? Not everyone on your team can deal with the crisis – that would only add to the confusion. Create a list of team members and their responsibilities during a crisis.

Step 3: Outline Communication Guidelines

It’s essential to outline communication guidelines that team members can follow to make sure this sensitive situation is handled correctly.

Your communication guidelines should include:

How your team should interact with the public and key stakeholders. For example, what and how information should be revealed to the public and stakeholders. This includes the tone of voice that should be used.
Network guidelines based on the platform where the crisis is occurring. For example, a crisis on Twitter has to be handled differently than a crisis on Facebook.
Q&A guidelines that show your team how to respond to questions and concerns from the general public.
Templates that your team can use to answer common questions and concerns.

Step 4: Deal With Loose Ends

Although it seems impossible to put aside time to deal with your daily tasks, it’s nonetheless an important part of effectively dealing with a crisis.

For example, if you have an important meeting with a client scheduled, canceling the meeting in the heat of crisis shows that you’re still composed and organized enough to inform them of the situation.

Consider the following during a crisis:

Do I have meetings today? Can I assign someone to cancel them?
Are there scheduled social media posts for the day? Will posting them worsen the situation?
Do I have important files that need to be sent out?
Can I assign someone else to take care of my daily tasks or can they be rescheduled for tomorrow?

At this point, your team should be fully aware of the details of the crisis. Now you can start crafting your strategy to diffuse the situation successfully.

Step 5: Implement Your Strategy

Your strategy for dealing with a crisis is the heart of the social media crisis management plan. Unfortunately, you can’t predict what your crisis will look like and therefore, you cannot create a cookie-cutter strategy that applies to all situations.

However, you can start with a few basic processes:

Gather the most common questions and concerns being asked by the public and create a template that your delegated team member can use to address them.
Craft a key message that lets the public know that you are aware of the crisis and that you’re making moves to solve the problem. Create a key message that:

1. Reflects your company values.
2. Is written in a tone that sounds “human,” relatable, and sympathetic.
3. Is tailored to your different audiences. For example, your Twitter response will be shorter than your Facebook response.

Step 6: Monitor

Once your key message has been sent, monitor your social media channels closely using a social media listening tool. This is the most efficient method of monitoring the status of the crisis and understanding the full extent of the situation.

Social Monitoring is a great way to monitor what’s being said. Click here to find out if Online Moderation’s Social Listening Services are right for you!

Step 7: Assess the Impact

Once the crisis is over, assess the effect it had on your brand. Compare metrics from the week of the crisis with those from the previous week to see how your crisis management plan impacted metrics.

Check for the following:

A fluctuation in followers
An increase in negative comments unrelated to the crisis
Activity patterns on your social media before and after you sent your key message to the public

Step 8: Evaluate Your Strategy

Evaluate how you and your team dealt with the social media crisis. Consider the impact your actions and messages had on the situation.

Ask questions like:

Were subsequent responses on Facebook more positive than those on Twitter?
Which members of our team performed the strongest? Weakest?
Are there new systems and processes we should put in place to make our plan stronger?

Conclusion

Follow these 8 steps to deal with a Social Media Crisis

Consider our social media management plan and how it can make things easier for you and your team in the heat of a crisis. Work with your team and other relevant parties to communicate and devise the best strategy for dealing with a crisis and create your own social media crisis management plan.

Pro Tip: It should be noted that your social media crisis management plan should be accessible online for all members of your team to see. This will save time and confusion during a crisis because all information can be found in one place and the next steps of your social media crisis management plan can be executed faster and more efficiently.

Click here to see how Online Moderation can help you plan now to handle a Social Media Crisis in the future!