7 Tips for Taking the Stress Out of a Social Media Crisis

It’s always a little uncomfortable to talk about PR crises.
We all obviously want to bury our heads in the sand and say, “That would never happen to my brand!”
And if everything goes according to plan, it never will.
But how often do things go according to plan?
Crisis communications—online or offline—require hope for the best but preparation for the worst. Know how to handle a social media crisis, make sure your team is ready to respond at any moment, and hope you’ll never be called to action.
And in case things go awry, follow these tips.
Want to build a tool kit to deal with any social media crisis? Download our free cheat sheet!

How to take the stress out of social media crises

1. Be prepared

The first step is an obvious one. The first time your team talks about managing a crisis shouldn’t be as soon as your first one happens!
Create a crisis communications plan that includes guidelines for any kind of crisis – online, offline, social, etc. Already having one ready when you need it will take care of one of the hardest parts of a crisis: figuring out what to do and what to tell the public.
By deciding what steps your brand will take in a crisis, how you’ll communicate that to your audience, and delegating who’s doing what—all in advance—you’ll have fewer split-second decisions to make.
And in situations like these, that’s a breath of fresh air.

2. Remember you’re humans appealing to humans

Once a crisis has hit and people ask you questions, it can be tempting to fall back on “brand speak.” Removing yourself from the situation and hiding behind a corporate identity makes facing the public a little less scary.
But it’s the wrong move.
Your brand voice should always sound human on social media, but it’s even more important in a crisis. Turn conversations about the crisis into a personal conversation, appeal to emotions, and generally be personable.
Your brand has just lost trust, and any empathy you can evoke can help manage crisis mode.
“The biggest misstep I see brands make during a social media crisis is switching to ‘corporate speak’ when responding to fans. Stay true to your voice, even in a time of crisis.” – David Hernandez, lotus823

3. Share frequent updates

Another way to start re-establishing trust with your audience is to show your brand’s dedication to managing the problem that started it all.
In the midst of a crisis, communicate frequently on all the channels your customers look for you on—that means your social media channels and any owned properties.
Cross-post the most important information your audience wants or needs in any social media crisis. And, like all important content, you’ll want to share it more than once. Use a scheduling tool in a crisis to pause your “regularly scheduled programming” and instead make sure everyone sees your more important updates.

4. Monitor social media constantly and respond quickly

In addition to sending out “full statements” to your whole audience, you’ll want to send individual replies to your audience as well.
During a crisis, many people will reach out directly on social media and even more will have conversations about you with other people.
You’ll need to understand everything being said, intervene in conversations that go off-track, and answer questions from your audience.
Monitoring makes it way easier to find conversations on multiple channels, whether you’re tagged or linked to or not. You can also engage and manage the crisis with some tools from your monitoring dashboard.
“Regardless if it is Twitter or Facebook or another social network, some companies forget to monitor their social media channels right away, and that lack of communication can get worse the longer that people have no answer.” – Nile Flores, Blondish.net

Create opportunities for wins

How you manage a social media crisis can also help rebuild trust with your audience.
The way you behave, the things you say, the values you prioritize – all of that can create opportunities to redeem yourself.
Things like being honest and transparent, putting your customers before your brand, owning up to a mistake, etc. can all do that.
“Try and turn something negative into a positive – while your company might be getting all this bad press about their [mistake], it’s still attention and a chance to get your brand recognized.So when managed effectively, you could actually use it as a way to show potential customers how great your customer service department is, and how much you actually do care about [the customers].” – Anna, CardioTech

Use employees as advocates

Don’t just rely on your main company accounts to post during a social media crisis. Use employee advocacy to help spread your message.

Empowering as many members of your team as possible will make a crisis that much easier to deal with, as long as you lay out ground rules.
Encourage employees to re-share messages from your brand’s main account. Give them guidelines for how to respond to anyone asking them questions. Give suggestions on how to communicate the brand voice and values.
This both makes crisis management easier and shows your brand still has your employees’ support.
“Companies dealing with a social crisis shouldn’t be afraid to use their number one power online – their employees. In the event a company crisis breaks out, it’s important to have an employee communications plan for how to react online.On occasion, you might want employees to “do nothing” or “say nothing” on their personal platforms, [but that’s a mistake].” – Ashley E. Stein, Shred Nations

Reflect after the fact

Once the madness is over, you don’t get to wash your hands of it and move on immediately.
First of all, you need to be on the lookout for any lasting effects the crisis has on your brand and constantly try to repair the damage.
And once enough time has passed, you need to conduct a postmortem analysis and reflect on the crisis.
Ask yourself things like:

• Why did this crisis happen? Could anything have been done to prevent it?
• How was our reaction time in managing the crisis?
• Did we communicate enough with our audience to keep them informed?
• How long did everything take to resolve?
• What can you do in the future to make crisis management better?

You don’t want this to happen again, but now that you know how to deal with it, you want to ensure your job gets easier each time you go into “crisis mode.”

Stay calm and work through it

No crises are easy. That’s why it’s a crisis.
But being prepared for a social media crisis makes it much less stressful. You know what’s coming, what to do about it, and everything else you need.
What are your best tips for a social media disaster?