Bad news and opinions travel fast…especially on social media! A small local issue has the potential to spiral into a full-blown international crisis quickly—something no brand can afford. With the right preparation and strategy, social media can be an essential tool for identifying potential crises as they emerge and managing them effectively in order to minimize the damage to your brand and business.
Best Practices...
Be Proactive.
Anticipate and plan for crises that your organization could encounter before they happen.
Get A Team Together.
During the planning phase, identify employees who will make up the crisis management team—the people who will know what to do when disaster strikes.
Don’t Expect Employees to Come to You.
Implement a notification system that quickly reaches out to employees with accurate information and guidance.
Don’t Put Up Roadblocks.
Trying to keep employees from communicating about crises via social media is futile. Instead, help them shape their messages by giving them correct information in a timely manner.
Act fast—but only say what you know to be true.
Speed is of the essence when it comes to crisis communications, but it shouldn’t come at the price of accuracy.
Don’t go silent.
If your organization is not yet ready to respond to an emergency, HR should at least let staffers know that the organization is gathering information and will follow up as soon as it can.
Test—then test again.
The most well-crafted communication plan won’t be very helpful if employees have no idea what it is or how to use it. At least once a year, test the process to find out from workers what it does and doesn’t do well, and then adjust accordingly.
Evaluate.
Post-crisis assessments are as important as pre-crisis plans. After the fact, review how the internal communication plan was executed. Determine what succeeded and what can be improved.
Let IAS help…
We have built Social Media Crisis Management templates, tools, and plans that integrate with security policies and procedures for businesses of all sizes, designed to be scalable for flexibility and offers a turn-key solution that will work seamlessly within your organization.
InfoAge Solutions (IAS) is a premier Business Technology Service Provider that works with organizations, hands-on, to identify and implement proven business practices, strategic frameworks, infrastructure processes, staff development, and leading-edge technology solutions.
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