Are You Prepared For A Social Media Crisis?

Many companies today dive into social media without a plan of any kind, let alone a crisis communications plan. Are you one of these companies? If so, you’re not alone but this is something that should be addressed sooner rather than later. Putting a crisis plan together doesn’t have to be a long and painful process but it needs to be created with intention and forethought. How will you handle a negative comment on a Facebook post? A complaint sent via Twitter to thousands of people? A one star review on Yelp? Or worse…

What ever your plan ends up entailing, our advice is to never panic, take a step back and respond thoughtfully. We’ve all seen too many cases where reactionary responses made in the heat of the moment have only added fuel to the fire. Also, we are advocates of never deleting negative comments. Unless they are vulgar, most often how you handle the response is telling to the rest of your audience. We are all human and mistakes are bound to happen at some point. When you can handle these situations with grace, honesty, and work to rectify situations that’s when you can turn a crisis around.

The infographic below draws on findings from in-depth interviews and survey of over 250 senior social media and CSR professionals from the report. It outlines how few companies are prepared for online criticism and how this is becoming an ever-increasing important aspect of business to be prepared for…

Source: http://reports.ethicalcorp.com/reports/smcc/infographic.php