Could you handle a social media storm?
Don’t risk your organisation’s reputation by failing to prepare for a communications crisis
STRATEGY
Image: Istock
John Quinton-Barber
Founder, Social
Issue: 63 | December 2022
Picture the scene. It’s a glorious Bank Holiday Monday in May and your phone rings. It’s your out-of-hours team saying there has been a serious incident reported in one of your properties. There’s a crowd gathering outside and pictures of the aftermath of the incident are already all over social media. You are 200 miles away in a holiday cottage in a quaint little village with patchy mobile phone coverage.
What are your first moves? Naturally the organisation must take immediate steps to secure the situation and safeguard residents and anyone else affected, and ensure the properties are safe. But alongside that, you need to get an immediate grip on the communications and PR position.
Reputational risk
Something like this is a scenario for every CEO or executive team to consider. The question is simple but the responses are varied. Depending on how prepared an organisation is for this type of scenario, the first move – or the first few hours – can cause huge reputational damage if not handled correctly.
Warren Buffett famously said: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” Those two simple sentences sum up the approach a business of every kind, shape, and size should take when it comes to protecting its reputation, and thereby its existence.
From a public relations perspective, doing things differently doesn’t just mean acting with integrity to avoid scandal, it also means preparing for the worst-case scenario, despite your good intentions.
Be prepared
So how prepared are you for a communications crisis or an out-of-hours social media storm?
Here’s a simple checklist.
- Plan, plan and plan again. Don’t wait for a crisis to happen. Make sure you have a crisis response communications strategy and policy in place and review and test it regularly.
- Create a crisis response team. Identify the right spokespeople and make sure they are trained to deal with the media.
- Communicate your policy right across the organisation to make sure everyone is aware of it and that, in the event of a crisis, all media enquiries are directed to the relevant team.
- Your crisis communications team should regularly run through various scenarios to test that all corporate policies and processes are in place to handle the worst.
- Create a 24-hour rota system and make sure the team has the skills to deal with an out-of-hours media crisis or social media storm. Get external help if necessary.
“Don’t wait for a crisis to happen. Make sure you have a crisis response communications strategy and policy in place and review and test it regularly.”
Resolving the situation
We are now living in a 24/7 social media society and news cycle. And as many organisations already know, one tweet can be the difference between an organisation thriving or barely surviving.
If you are caught in a social media storm, how confident are you that you can quickly resolve the situation, or at least calm it down so that any underlying issues can be tackled in an orderly manner?
Here are some tried and tested methods:
- Quickly assess the situation. How many comments has a negative post about your organisation attracted? What is the sentiment. Is the media involved?
- Internal communications first. Acknowledge to all colleagues that you are aware of the situation and that you are dealing with it.
- Create a response that displays empathy, immediacy and sincerity. Don’t get involved in a debate. If appropriate, signpost people to an official statement on your website.
- Be timely with any replies or updates.
- The objective is to rapidly defuse the immediate situation.
Moving on
It is important to remember that most social media storms come and go quickly – if they are handled correctly. And most social media users monitoring a conversation are often satisfied and ‘move on’ if they see an organisation has responded appropriately.
There may be longer-term issues to tackle, but ideally away from the glare of social media.
Think of this Twitter scenario:
@jobloggs: “Hey @SuperSarnie – I’ve just found a dead spider in my sandwich.”
Three minutes later:
@SuperSarnie: “Hi @jobloggs – oh no. We are very sorry to hear that. We’ve just sent you a direct message to sort this out.”
There really isn’t anything more for a bystander to see. There was an issue and the organisation has acknowledged and responded appropriately.
No organisation is immune from a sudden potentially serious crisis or a social media storm. It is how you respond that can make a whole world of difference. So, ask yourself this. How confident are you that your organisation is ready to handle a crisis?
“No organisation is immune from a sudden potentially serious crisis or a social media storm. It is how you respond that can make a whole world of difference.”
