Social Media Crisis Management: Turning Challenges into Opportunities

Social media crises come in many forms: discontent around company decisions, employee misconduct, cybersecurity breaches, or even fake news. These incidents can lead to anything from a few days of negative press to long-lasting reputational damage. Any organization with a public presence is at risk, making social media crisis preparedness non-negotiable. 

It’s estimated that 67% of customers seek resolution to issues on social media channels. Social media monitoring tools are an invaluable asset for businesses, helping them identify, respond to, and resolve crises faster. Effective use of these tools has enabled brands to act swiftly and decisively during social media crisis situations, minimizing impact and fostering trust. This article explores how to use social media effectively in crisis management, outlining strategies and actionable steps to help your brand stay ahead of crisis communication.

 

Communication Tactics in Social Media Crisis Management

Social media platforms allow brands to disseminate crucial updates and support impacted individuals directly. This can include tweets, press releases, or CEO statements, ensuring that accurate information reaches both internal teams and the public. The best strategies for social media crisis management include preparation, monitoring, evaluation, engagement, and focused content—all designed to provide clarity and reassurance during challenging times.

Ready-to-Use Social Media Crisis Management Plan

Communicating well during a social media crisis starts long before the crisis is on the horizon. You may not be able to predict when a crisis happens, but you can be prepared for it by creating your social media crisis management plan. Your crisis communication plan should prepare and guide your team to react quickly and efficiently to any possible crisis, and it should include:

• Protocols, Policies, and Guidelines: Clear rules for handling crises.
• Response Action Plan: Pre-written messages for immediate deployment.
• Contact Lists: Internal and external communication contacts.
• Pre-assigned Roles: Designated responsibilities within your crisis team.
• Additional Support: A list of extra team members to assist if needed.

Consider implementing a “Pre-Crisis Training” program to educate staff on communication protocols. Downloadable templates or visual guides can further support your team’s readiness.

Real-Time Media Monitoring

Social media moderation plays a crucial role in crisis management, allowing businesses to monitor conversations and respond to negative comments in real-time. Around-the-clock monitoring ensures brands can quickly address misinformation, identify allies, and manage public sentiment. Moderation teams are essential for tracking ongoing discussions and intervening before issues escalate.

Identify and Evaluate the Risk

Monitoring your social media is essential for staying informed and proactively addressing potential crises. To maximize the benefits of social listening, your team must be able to quickly identify risks and potential threats unique to your market, industry, and overall practices.

One tool to consider adding to your brand’s social media crisis management plan is a risk assessment matrix. A risk assessment matrix is a visual tool that allows businesses to more easily identify, evaluate, and manage risks before they escalate. This allows teams to quickly:

• Pinpoint potential threats.
• Evaluate each situation’s context (who, what, when, where, why).
• Determine the necessary actions and responses.

Time is of the essence during a social media crisis and making decisive decisions guided by your social media crisis management plan ensures you can quickly resolve an issue.

Engage the Audience

When social media crises arise, connecting with your audience is key to keeping their trust and calming the storm. Quick, genuine responses show you’re paying attention and taking action. to Keep an eye on audience engagement to measure the effectiveness of your crisis management. Here are some social media crisis management metrics you can track:

• Response Time: Measure how quickly your team addresses comments, questions, or concerns during the crisis.
• Sentiment Analysis: Track changes in public sentiment to see if your responses are positively influencing perceptions.
• Resolution Rate: Monitor the percentage of resolved issues or inquiries compared to the total received.
• Engagement Volume: Analyze the number of interactions (likes, comments, shares) to gauge audience involvement during a crisis
• Platform-Specific Impact: Identify which platforms generate the most engagement to prioritize resources and efforts effectively.

When things get hectic, having a dedicated team or service to handle 24/7 community management can make sure your brand stays engaged without missing a beat.

Keep the Conversation Fresh

Channels of communication between your brand, your audience, and your customers should be open and clear from out-of-topic conversations to help you manage and focus on the current crisis. Turn off any scheduled social media posts or engagements that may be out of sync with your current social media crisis.

Share facts in real-time, rather than waiting until you have all the answers to create trust among your audience. You can keep the social media crisis conversation relevant by: 

• Making a hashtag for your crisis
• Releasing messages with the correct information to counter any misinformation
• Publishing short and actionable messages
• Staying calm and informative
• Sending updates frequently on different channels 
• Pausing scheduled posts ensures your messaging stays relevant and sensitive to the situation.

Reference Guide: Social Media Crisis Management Checklist

A social media crisis management checklist is a vital tool to navigate turbulent moments with clarity and confidence. By following these actionable guidelines, brands can stay organized, minimize potential damage, and maintain audience trust during a social media crisis. Keep your social media strategy on track when it matters most. Here are a few items to add to your social media crisis management checklist: 

• Preparation: Train staff on crisis communication protocols and develop pre-written responses for common scenarios.
• Monitoring: Use social media listening tools to track mentions and identify the crisis. 
• Response: Address concerns quickly and authentically. Share updates frequently across channels.
• Evaluation: Measure engagement metrics to review the effectiveness of your crisis response plan.

 

Social Media Crisis Examples

Understanding what types of social media crises you can expect can provide helpful preparation. Crisis can take many forms from negative comments on ads to industry crises. Here are some of the most common and how to handle them.

Negatives comments on ads

Negative comments can be handled to prevent any further damage to your brand from upset customers. Even small complaints should be addressed with grace and good sense, as negative comments on ads can escalate quickly and impact your business.

Multi-channel crisis

A crisis can start on a platform, escalate, and quickly jump from one platform to another. Quick, open, and honest communication with your audience across all your channels is key. Online community management will help your brand control the story that is being shared across multiple platforms.

Vendor, partner, or collaborator crisis

Who you team up with can have a considerable impact on your brand in times of crisis. Your collaborators are not immune to any personal, executive, financial, or technological crisis (just to name a few), and their crises might affect you in a small or bigger way, depending on how your collaboration is seen by your audience. As a brand, your communication should align with your brand mission and values. With any communication, authenticity is paramount.

Fake news crisis

Your brand must be sensitive to the power of social media. A silly comment can get picked up by others and quickly snowball into a social media crisis. Whether the source has been confirmed or not, false, unintentional, or context-lacking comments can and will be shared on social media. You should be prepared to react quickly and update your audience with a statement that includes true information, as well as a reminder of your values and commitments. As with all social media crises, your timing is key.

Industry crisis

There are many crises that can happen, such as one that touches your industry. Those types of crises need specific industry expertise to help you manage your crisis. Your team should keep your audience informed with regular updates to provide reassurance and stability.

Technological crisis

Your brand likely uses a plethora of public platforms, private software, and heavily-integrated applications to manage tasks, products, and services. Problems in technology systems may arise and create a technological crisis, from breakdowns of software and security breaches to slow applications.

In times of a tech crisis, ensure your brand has a backup plan for communicating, and your tech can ensure a quick resolution. A social media management plan can help you inform and communicate with the affected parties to reduce the impact of the crisis on your business.

Product failures and customer dissatisfaction

Customer dissatisfaction can vary from quality and pricing issues to customer service problems and product failures. When not handled right away, customer dissatisfaction can escalate into a potential crisis. Organizations should closely monitor reported customer issues. Bad reviews, for example, can negatively impact the business, create a bad reputation, and lead to a loss of customer trust and loyalty.

Why Social Media Crisis Management Matters to Your Business

Flagging potential threats and identifying potential reputational damages are key to social media crisis management. Social media crisis management plans can help your brand diffuse a crisis before it arises or reduce its impact on your organization.

A strong social media crisis management plan will help your brand:

• Prevent short and long-term brand reputational damage
• Restore calm and stability
• Avoid dips in sales and revenue
• Return to equilibrium as soon as possible
• Maintain, or even strengthen, customer and employee loyalty and satisfaction

Social listening services can help you monitor conversations and sentiments around your brand to understand when and how your brand is discussed across social media platforms. It will also help your business spot any potential problems and crises before they arise.

Social Media Crisis Management Mistakes

Everything posted on social media has the potential to be viewed and shared indefinitely. Social media can help you protect your brand reputation, but when mishandled can lead to catastrophes. Social media allows news — and mistakes — to spread quickly. Take the time to train your team to avoid some of the most common social media crisis management mistakes.

Disappearing from social media

Strategizing for a crisis takes time. While your team may need to take a ‘pause,’ know that disappearing from social media during a crisis will likely make things worse. Your audience needs to be updated and reassured. Focus on positive engagements and avoid slow or delayed responses.

Leaving questions unanswered

During a crisis, the number of comments, messages, and tweets you receive might feel overwhelming. Leave space and time to engage with your audience and reply to their questions. Let your audience know what the best way is for them to reach you, and consider creating an FAQ page to provide answers efficiently.

Being unprepared

Preparing a strong social media crisis management plan ahead of a crisis is essential. Not having a crisis plan will affect the quality of your reaction and your ability to make swift decisions. Prepare your team members beforehand to provide your brand with the foundation needed to push through a crisis. Having specific responses in place will save you time and stress when you need them during a crisis.

Trying to profit from the crisis

It might sound lucrative to use the attention garnered around your social media crisis for sales purposes. Short answer: Don’t. During a crisis, profit-driving activities can damage a brand’s reputation. Capitalizing on your social media crisis to bolster your brand in the marketplace is not a wise business decision. Avoid launching products or services during a crisis.

Not being patient

Patience is the key to emerging from any crisis. Planned campaigns can (and should) take a back seat during a crisis. Rushing to get out of any crisis can result in avoidable mistakes and inconsiderate responses. Take the time necessary to get your brand on the other side of a crisis successfully.

Posting regular scheduled content

Postpone scheduled social media posts that are out of sync with the current social media crisis. All social media content should be sensible and considerate of the current matter at hand.

ICUC: Helping Brands Manage Social Media Crises Effectively

Crisis moments hit when we least expect them. One bad tweet or viral comment can impact a company’s sales for months to follow. Social media’s role in crisis management is key to not only preparing for the worst but also handling and mitigating any potential crisis with confidence as it arises.

With a global team operating in 52+ languages, ICUC is trusted by over 350 leading brands to handle, track, and resolve crisis moments with care around the clock. Our experts are dedicated to ensuring your brand emerges stronger from any challenge.

Looking to safeguard your brand against crises? Schedule a call with ICUC today to learn how our social media moderation and management services can support you every step of the way.