Social Media & Crisis Response: What You Need to Know


Social Media Just Lit Up About Your Brand.jpg

You just watched agog as yet another big-name reputation in corporate America went down in flames thanks to a controversy either born on social media or fanned by online videos and conversation. As a result, you finally got the go-ahead from senior management to put that update of your crisis plan at the top of your to-do list. So, what does an effective contemporary crisis plan look like?

What elements should a plan embrace that would give an organization the power to get ahead of, and manage effectively, the impact of social media and digital technology during a crisis?

 

As I noted in my previous blog, from my experience, the key areas are:


1. Understand the difference between an issue and a crisis. A badly managed issue or a premature over-the-top response may well result in a crisis!


2. Clear roles & responsibilities for the crisis team. This applies to the crisis team but also for the external resources involved in a crisis response (and training and testing to ensure they really do understand their role).


3. Identification and tracking of the issues. This means conducting an 
exercise to identify the issues most likely to impact the organization – or 
those that would do most damage.


4. Comprehensive worst case scenario planning. Individual response plans against each of the most likely or most damaging threats – with each response to include messaging, escalation plans, third party resources and communications strategies.


VIEW INFOGRAPHIC: Audit Your Disaster Recovery Plan With This Decision Tree







In this blog, we’ll look at the first of those areas, the difference between an issue and a crisis - and how your plan must be designed to reflect the difference.



The characteristics of an Issue

  • Issues do not pose an immediate threat to life, property or health. 
  • Issues typically do not present an immediate risk to the organization’s 
    reputation, financial condition or performance. However, if an issue is not 
    managed appropriately it can evolve and have a direct impact on both.
  • Often, an issue is ongoing in nature, and reflects the desire of a third party 
    to change something about an organization or an industry.
  • An issue is something that is often dealt with via a regulatory, policy or legal response.

The characteristics of a Crisis

  • A crisis is an immediate situation that threatens to harm people or property, seriously interrupt business, substantially damage the company's reputation, and/or negatively and materially impact stakeholder value.
  • Crises present, or have the potential of presenting, negative long-term repercussions on the organization’s reputation, financial condition or performance.

A plan must distinguish between the two and have appropriate responses for each.

Many incidents are born as full-blown crises. But that is rare - most weeks, it’s issues with which we are dealing.

A heavy handed and premature response to an issue can serve to inflame the issue, make it more visible (for example - anyone who thinks that the way to deal with criticism on your social media page is to delete the posts).

The same is true of a limp, weak response (for example – the United Airlines non-apology apology) when a stronger hand was required.

In the pressurized hours in the immediate aftermath of an incident, it’s not always clear which is which – so you need your plan to be able to guide your response with thinking that was created in calmer, more thoughtful moments.

Is your current plan capable of doing that?


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