In this video, you'll learn about the world of crisis
communications and how social media plays
a significant role in the specialized
area of communications and marketing.
What is a crisis?
Crisis have been defined as events that either cause harm
or the potential for harm to an individual or organization.
Whether the harm produces physical, emotional,
or environmental damage to individuals and communities
involved in the crisis or damage to the corporate reputation
or financial standing of an organization, the range of harm
is different in each unique situation.
Full understanding of a crisis encompasses not only
the actual event but also the process or time leading
from an event, including the subsequent perceptions
of the crisis by various stakeholders.
While most research has been dedicated
to focus on traditional crises, social media crises
are quite different due to where they start.
Texas A&M Professor Tim Coombs, who
is one of the leading researchers and scholars
in crisis communications, classifies social media crises
as acting somewhat like zombies in nature
compared to traditional crises.
What Coombs means by this is that a social media crisis
is an incident or triggering event that
happens on social media or on a particular platform,
rapidly spreads from person to person,
spreads virally to become a traditional news story.
Advances in social media have opened a world of opportunity
for sharing information across public and private sectors
and disseminating necessary information about a crisis
among stakeholder groups.
Emerging communication platforms are transforming
how crisis communicators reach their audiences and partner
with agencies in a variety of situations.
These transformations and adoptions not only
change how individuals and organizations communicate
during a crisis but also how others perceive their actions
and behaviors and the overall reputation
of brands or corporations involved in the situation.
New types of social media crises arise every day.
And the brands need to be prepared for that.
Here are some examples of social media
crises you might come across.
Cyber attacks or the hacking of social media
accounts-- this happens when an account is compromised and is
sharing either inappropriate or spam content that
is not reflective of the brand voice and mission.
Advocates calling for boycotts on advertisers--
when audience members are not happy with how the organization
is practicing, they may use social media
to voice their outrage and cause others to follow them.
Live video-- video is unpredictable
and can show a situation happening in real time,
causing chaos and emotion to spark.
Fake news and rumors--
information that is not true can circulate
online, which will distract from the real information
about the crisis being shared.
Employees going rogue-- sometimes employees
go off script and go against social media policy behavior.
This comes about when employees perhaps
do not agree with the actions by their employer,
or they feel no one will catch them.
These have to be addressed and handled
in a timely and appropriate manner.
Trendjacking during a sensitive situation--
trendjacking happens when you take advantage
of a situation that is trending in order to get
your commercial message out.
Outrage based on something that has been shared or posted--
people view social media platforms as first impressions.
And if they see something they do not like,
they will voice these concerns openly and loudly online.
So what do you do if you're experiencing a social media
crisis?
Do not panic.
When a problem arises on social media,
you want to ask yourself a few questions.
First, is this a real crisis or not?
As Melissa Agnes discusses in her book Crisis Ready,
there are differences between what an issue is
and what a crisis is.
If it is a crisis, you need to own it and take responsibility
for your actions.
You need to have a sound team in place for your crisis team.
You will want to have a mixture of professionals
who are part of your team like the CEO and key decision
makers.
Representatives from the legal department
are going to be key to make sure the actions and messages follow
the law.
In addition, subject matter experts
will continue communicating the key specifics
that the media may have questions about, for example,
a health specialist on Ebola for the Center for Disease Control.
Internal representations from the brand like PR, marketing,
accounting, finance, and HR are also
keen to have as part of the crisis team.
Each member will be able to come in with their subject matter
expertise and offer a unique perspective.
Lastly, one of the most important things you
need to have is a crisis plan.
A crisis plan outlines all the steps
needed to take during a crisis.
It describes who should be involved, when to respond,
a prepared statement, and the action
plan if a crisis escalates.
You should regularly look at this plan
and revise based on the social media
platform changes as well as in response
to the rising issues and challenges
that need to be accounted for in a crisis.
When a crisis emerge, you do not want
to be responding on the fly.
Preparation is key to be as proactive as possible
when a crisis hits.
There are three different stages to a crisis--
preparation, precrisis, response, crisis, and recovery,
postcrisis.
Preparation comes in many forms like sending
a proactive monitoring system, training all your team members
in crisis communication, setting social media guidelines
and protocols, creating a message map for responses
and statements for each given situation,
building a healthy and interactive relationship
with key parties.
Even the best brands can have preparation plans in place.
But they still are in the midst of a crisis.
During the response stage crisis or the trigger
event occurs, and it is game on.
In the response stage, a social media manager and their team
has to react quickly, compassionately,
with authoritative and clear words and actions.
Understand the emotions being shared on social media.
Pay attention to feedback, comments, sentiment,
and false information that could be spreading.
Integrate social media messages to the appropriate medium
and audience.
Monitor and integrate comments into crisis plan strategy.
Provide statements to audiences to take certain actions
embracing self-efficacy.
Once the crisis has been resolved and addressed,
the recovery or postcrisis stage emerges.
And we have to evaluate the overall sentiment
of the messages.
Determine the overall response in the media
and amongst key audiences.
Analyze the data to see what lessons to take away.
Evaluate team members and the response strategies
from the crisis.
Determine best practices and lessons learned.
What exactly is involved in a crisis plan?
There are many different types of crisis plans out there.
But you need to first build one that fits your team, resources,
and the industry you are in.
Here are some must-have components for your crisis
plan--
a good mix of executive personnel to enforce decisions,
management to coordinate and partner with communication
experts to craft the messages.
Make sure you also have someone from legal and potentially
investor relations involved.
Brainstorm all of the potential issues that could arise.
Start by making a list of everything
you can think of that could be a crisis or a problem.
This could be events like gun terror, a lying executive,
a fire, white-collar crime, delivery problems
with your product, internet trolls gone wild,
data breaches, sexual harassment, website issues,
you name it.
Assign a level based on how much it will affect your company's
bottom line.
Then determine exactly at what point will you push the issue
up the risk ladder.
Determine which stakeholder will be notified
at what risk level-- managers, executives, partners, clients,
vendors, local and federal authorities, and the press.
Create a list of internal contacts and their titles,
the departments that should get involved.
Include their email addresses, phone numbers,
and alternative contact numbers.
Alert the stakeholders using the risk levels you've preset.
You'll also need a social monitoring program
that will help you see all of the incoming social
conversations that you have a sense of the urgency
of the crisis or problem.
If there is a situation that needs an apology,
do it and do it fast within 60 minutes.
Be as sincere and as transparent as possible.
The longer you wait, the more the situation
can spiral out of control.
It is a proactive move to see what mentions, key words,
and conversations are emerging about a brand in crisis.
It is not only important to explore what is being said,
but who is driving the conversations.
These conversations can tell us a lot
about any potential early warning signs,
level of sentiment for the brand in crisis,
who are the influencers driving the conversation,
for example, advocates, customers, media, or trolls,
and any issues that need to be addressed in a timely manner.
There are different ways to approach this.
Let's look at examples from two case studies.
Southwest Airlines, which has established itself
as a proactive party to social media because of its dedication
to timely customer service, was responsible to the engine
explosion incident that happened in April 2018
with one of their planes.
In this crisis, the team responded promptly
and discussed the ways in which they
will be addressing this type of situation in the future.
In 2017, Uber took actions that were counter to individuals
protesting at New York's JFK Airport
during President Donald Trump's travel ban.
Customers of Uber were outraged by the actions of the CEO
and voiced their frustration publicly,
which resulted in a worldwide viral movement
on social media of people deleting the Uber app.
In 2018, there was also a Delete Facebook crisis
which came about when Cambridge Analytica, a elections
consulting agency, were outed by a whistleblower
for hijacking data from over 87 million Facebook users
without their knowledge.
As a result, Uber and Facebook had
to address the Delete Uber and Delete Facebook
movements online.
Many felt that the companies took too long
to respond to the crises.
And their statements appeared to not be
tailored to the situation.
Uber's CEO eventually left the company.
And Mark Zuckerberg had to testify to Congress.
Both brands had different results to their crisis.
But neither had a sound listening and monitoring
protocol to guide them in how they needed to respond.
You also have to know where the crisis first
started on social media.
Most of the time, a crisis sparks
on a particular platform.
This is where you have to be since this
is where your audience will be having
the conversations surrounding the particular incident.
Not responding or being present on social media
could result in a bigger situation
to address, which could impact the company more in the future.
Within the social listening and monitoring protocol
you have set forth, you do want to make
sure you are empathetic to the current landscape
and emotional state of your audiences.
This is not the time to promote posts or news-jack a crisis
situation.
In addition, researching why certain trends are trending
is crucial because not understanding
the context of things could result in getting yourself
into a bigger crisis.
In this day and age where everyone
wants to be relevant and trending on social media,
this could actually result in creating crisis for yourself.
Look at what happened a few years ago to DiGiorno's
and the #WhyIStayed hashtag.
The brand entered a serious conversation
about survivors of domestic violence
by stating they stayed because of the pizza.
The brand apologized for this incident
and recognized it was a key to first research
a trending hashtag before jumping into the conversation.
With that being said, here are some tips
for handling social media during a crisis.
Make sure to pause scheduled social media posts.
Pause paid ads on social media channels.
Pause marketing emails.
Assess the plan, blogging, and campaign schedule
for appropriateness.
Create a blog post addressing the situation as needed.
Provide talking points for executives as needed.
Check all content for relevant references
that could be perceived as offensive or rude
in light of the event.
Cancel any planned product updates or changes.
Create a plan for employee communications as needed.
Communicate issues and customer support via social media.
Notify folks speaking that they need to address or not
and relevant talking points.
Consider creating a flowchart of action.
Make sure you disseminate your plan to internal stakeholders.
For the most part, social media crises can be prevented.
Educational training is key.
And crisis simulations need to be conducted
to make sure all parties are aware of what they need
to do if something happens.
If a mistake happens, own it, and take responsibility.
Make sure you address this proactively
and in a timely manner.
Never say no comment.
This is what you do not want to do.
There are always ways to address a question from the media
and others if you do not have the information at a given
time, for example, stating, "At this time,
we are still in the midst of an investigation
and do not have all of the facts.
However, we will be providing an update on Tuesday
to provide more details for you all."
Don't engage in a flame war.
Trolls and those who are not your fans
may want to start a heated conversation with you
to create an emotional spark.
While it is tempting to reply, it
is better to not engage in a conversation that
could escalate into a bigger situation.
Do not blame the intern.
Many times there is a perception that if something goes wrong,
it's because of the intern.
That's not always the case.
And it is key to not allow this narrative to spread
amongst the online community.
Understand the role of the spokesperson and key players
involved.
How you present yourself is just as important as what you say.
First impressions matter.
Make sure the statements you share on social media
reflect on these points.
Use your best influencers and advocates.
These individuals are not just for promoting new products
and services but could be your best allies
in a time of crisis.
In summary, preparation is the name
of the game for having a strong crisis communication plan.
Like the changes we see in social media,
we have to be prepared for the incidents that could negatively
impact our brand culture, reputation, and community.
Listening and monitoring for these potential crises
could help in being a proactive and effective social media
professional.
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