Three Signs to Enact Your Social Media Crisis Plan

Wait! There’s not always a need to go into panic mode at the first negative tweet that comes your way.

While there’s no universal threshold to judge when to go into full-out crisis mode, there are some clear warning signs that your social media crisis management plan will help you assess and respond (if you don’t have one, here are some tips to deal with a social media crisis).

Sign: The Message is from the Masses

One of the first steps in analyzing the severity of a social media crisis is determining where the problem originates and from how many. Is it one influencer’s issues that have sparked a large number of shares and retweets? Or is it from a number of individuals experiencing the same problem? If the chatter is the result of a single influencer, there may be no need to implement a public-facing crisis response. You may have the option to go directly to the source and discuss the issue. Conversely, if a number of people are experiencing the same issue, the masses should be addressed. That would definitely constitute rolling out your complete public social media crisis response tactics. The key here is to triage and assess the potential issue quickly, using your plan and org chart, then respond accordingly.

Sign: The Trend is Serious

As stated in our ebook, All Star Social Media Crisis Response for Brands, “If the brand is trending because of a tragedy, you will need to approach your crisis solution with great sensitivity. If it’s trending because of satire of parody, you will need to approach it with humor.” If you jump right in and respond in the wrong context, you risk humiliation and the possibility of inflaming the situation further. Take a breath and understand whether people are joking around, which allows you to joke back, or whether the situation needs to be escalated to a crisis response plan.

Sign: It’s Gone Viral

FedEx faced a crisis when a customer posted a video of a FedEx employee doing something wrong. Their response was not only public but it utilized the same medium. Their Senior VP of Operations responded with a video.

All social media crises are not created equally. Make sure you do a proper assessment of the context of the issue before deciding how to respond. Over-reacting or under-reacting can both lead to the inflammation of the situation, leading to even more headaches.

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