A social media crisis communications plan

Swipe sideways to see the whole diagram.

The fifteen actions covered in the article. The column placement shows which ones are still possible once a crisis has begun — something a flat list cannot convey.

A communications crisis can strike at any moment. It could be a defective product, a poorly executed campaign, or an off-the-cuff remark from a senior leader. When it happens, a business is affected on many fronts. That is why managers need an effective crisis communications plan.

Before a crisis occurs

Assemble a crisis communications team

While every employee matters, not all of them will be part of your crisis management team. You need to assemble a group of responders who are accountable, knowledgeable, and each assigned a clear role. You will want a good mix of operational staff (to execute decisions), management (to coordinate), and creatives (to craft the right messaging).

As you build your team, answer the following questions:

Who will own the overall strategy — assigning tasks and keeping the team on target?
Who is responsible for identifying and monitoring potential crises?
Who will brief management and/or key stakeholders?
Who will manage social media and respond to questions?
And who will handle incoming messages across other channels?
Which executive will serve as spokesperson to the media?

Settle these roles while you still have time to plan. Next, it is time to think about the types of crises you may face.

Defining a crisis

Information asymmetry — you do not know more than the public
Out of the ordinary — not everyday criticism
Serious risk — the scope extends beyond a single customer

If any one of the three signs is missing, it is not yet a crisis, and activating the process will cost more than staying silent.

You need to decide which types of events will turn your new plan into action. Not every piece of bad news or negative headline forces you to launch crisis management.

For this, you will need a working definition of a crisis. According to Jay Baer, a social media crisis has three characteristics:

Information asymmetry: When you know no more than the public about what is going on.
A departure from the norm: Everyday criticism of your product is not a crisis. When your product randomly explodes — that is a crisis.
Serious risk to your company: This may seem obvious, but it is the scope of the problem that matters. An incident is only considered a crisis when it causes genuine negative impact.

With your new team, set the standard and find real-world examples of what counts as a crisis. An added benefit of this is that you will identify potential weak points you may not have thought of.

Because every company is different, the point is to create a definition that works for you. Once you have done that, you can start thinking about the key steps to take during a crisis.

Craft your key message

How you respond publicly during a crisis can determine your success. You may have an excellent plan and a smart team, but if the message is wrong, you have no chance.

You can't build a specific response plan because you don't know what the crisis will be. Instead, establish your core values as a company and your key value proposition for customers. Whatever your response in a difficult moment, these should come first.

And why do core values matter? No matter how much you focus on crisis management, you can't monitor everything your spokespeople or social media managers say and post. What you can ensure is that the values being communicated align with the guidelines you've set. If you remind customers why they came to you in the first place, you stand a far better chance of keeping them.

Create communication guidelines

Rules for communicating with stakeholders and the executive board
Specific principles for each social media platform
The update process via the website and online channels
Guidance for employees outside the crisis response team

Four sets of principles. The fourth is the one most often forgotten, and it covers the most people.

Once you have a clear grasp of your core message, you need to decide how to deliver it. That means creating guidelines so anyone writing social media posts knows what is expected of them.

To be ready for a crisis, do the following:

Define the rules for communicating with stakeholders and key executives.
Set network-specific guidelines for communicating on social media (since you'll have different content and format considerations for each network).
Decide on the process for communicating updates through your website and your company's other online channels outside social media.
Create guidelines for employees outside the crisis communications team advising them on how to answer questions.

Invest in a monitoring tool that will help you discover what is being said about you and where. If you are trying to keep track of everything happening on social media without a Social Listening tool, you are at a serious disadvantage because you lose the ability to act proactively.

You will need something that gives you real-time updates and lets you analyze large volumes of data to draw conclusions.

>See more: Crisis Management Strategies for Businesses

During a Crisis

Take Control of the Situation

Putting together a checklist will help you take control of the situation. It serves as a step-by-step guide to follow when trouble hits. For complete guidance, you need a specific task checklist and an established process.

Pause Your Scheduled Posts

With panic breaking out all around you, it is easy to forget that you already have a queue of posts waiting to go live. Pause new posts to avoid escalating the situation and to ensure your messaging does not get tangled up with crisis coverage.

Publicly Acknowledge What Is Happening

You will not be able to hide it for long — especially on social media. Your best move is to make it clear that you are aware of the problem and are working hard to fix it. You will still receive some angry responses, but acknowledgment helps ease people's concerns and doubts.

Brief Your Team

You did not assemble a team just to leave it idle. Reach out to them quickly and put them to work. If you respond fast enough, you can reduce the overall damage.

Post a long-form response on your website

You'll be sending plenty of small, personalized responses on social media. But you also need a place where journalists and bloggers can find your side of the story.

After managing a communications crisis

Assess the damage to your brand

This is where your monitoring tool comes in handy again. You should have data showing what a normal week looks like, so you can compare it against your "crisis week." You'll quickly see just how bad things got.

From a social media perspective, focus on factors such as unfollow volume, specific complaints, and the level of negative sentiment surrounding your brand. You'll also be able to see where your responses were most effective.

Review your responses

Once it looks like you've come through the crisis, it's important to review your response. Hopefully you had a solid plan in place and everyone knew exactly what was expected of them.

As part of your plan, set aside time to regroup after the event and discuss how everything went. Key questions to address include:

What were the strongest aspects of your brand's crisis plan?
Where was the current strategy unhelpful or low-impact?
Are there any processes or templates that need to be revised?
Do you need to create any new systems or guidelines?

Preparing for the long term

Unfortunately, negative news and complaints can linger for longer than a week or two. You need to decide how you will respond going forward.

Acting as though everything has been resolved is not the best approach. Instead, you should proactively provide updates and solutions to help customers get through the difficult period.

Upgrade your crisis management plan

This may be the first opportunity you have to test your crisis management plan, so you need to find out whether it actually works.

Hopefully you will not have to handle another crisis for some time, so now is the moment to make changes.

Go through each part of your plan and make any changes that are needed. Carry out the necessary fixes to ensure your crisis management plan performs as well as you want it to.

Looking ahead, once you have assessed and reflected on how the crisis was handled, your business should also consider using an external service provider for greater efficiency and expertise. One solution available to businesses here is the Social Listening tool from Kompa.

Kompa is a company that applies data technology (AI, machine learning) on a Big Data platform to deliver data analytics solutions and equip clients with valuable "insights" to optimize their business operations across many areas such as Marketing, Finance, Operations and other fields.

A Social Listening tool designed to optimize communications activities and elevate Brand management. With a social media listening and monitoring system that combines Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data and human expertise, Kompa gathers comprehensive information and analyzes data in detail, helping businesses track Brand health, uncover customer Insight, and monitor competitors and the market 24/7.

Kompa partners with small, medium and large enterprises in Vietnam such as: Vingroup, Masterise Homes, Vinamilk, SSI, MB Bank, Tân Hiệp Phát, Shopee, and Vietjet Air.

Conclusion

The article above has outlined the steps for building a communications crisis management plan for your business. We hope it helps business leaders become better at anticipating and handling crises.