Social Media Marketing For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Dealing with a Social Media Crisis

Sooner or later, you will be hit by a social media crisis. As a brand, you may do something that angers your community. Something may happen to one of your products or services that results in a sudden, sharp backlash from people across the social media ecosystem. If and when this happens, knowing how to respond in the first 24 hours and the first week is absolutely critical. Companies have saved or lost many millions of dollars simply by how they responded to a crisis. Don’t make the mistakes that others have.

If you are hit by a social media crisis, the following are key steps to take immediately:

1. Bring together an emergency response team.

Usually a combination of marketers, consumer relations professionals, PR teams, product managers, and consultants — a core emergency response team should be identified, established, and empowered to make all decisions regarding the crisis.

2. Listen to the community.

Using the social media tools discussed in the earlier chapters, try to understand the extent of the backlash and whether it is increasing or decreasing over time. Also, pay particular attention to the complaints and whether there’s uniformity from different people. Also try to understand whether the crisis has geographic boundaries or is limited to a certain set of people who share demographic traits. Try to unearth whether they are new customers, existing customers, or neither.

3. Identify and solve the problem.

There’s no better way ...