Ruh roh. A new survey from German consultancy Gartner Communications found that while nearly 85% of companies worldwide have general crisis plans in place (yea!), only 20.7% have social media crisis plans set (boo!). Moreover, while 71% of in-house communicators think social media will become even more important in crisis communications going forward, a staggering 78.6% said they were pretty unprepared or so-so when it comes to social media crises.
Houston, we have a problem.
As a PR practitioner who has managed many a crises in my day, this concerns me deeply and, sadly, validates what I’ve suspected for a while. More and more brands are embracing the importance of social media marketing, without adequately preparing for the risks. This isn’t to say that brands shouldn’t be jumping headfirst into Facebook, Twitter and the like – they just need to treat them as they would any other communications avenue by making sure they are ready to tackle any challenges.
Several major brands have been dinged via social media recently – whether it was due to a product deficiency, customer service problem or, God forbid, the worst environmental disaster ever (remember our blog posts on BP and Kraft, as just two examples). But, what’s added insult to injury in many of these crisis situations are slow, inadequate and insincere responses to the calamities at hand – probably due in large part to a lack of social media crisis preparedness.
So, what should brands do?
- Stop looking at “general crisis communications” and “social media crisis communications” as two different things. When planning for catastrophes, you need to think about all possible implications – including media coverage, internal dissent, social media furor and upset stakeholders. Whether it’s sending an email to your staff, responding to a reporter’s questions or posting to your Facebook page, all of these tactics need to be treated as equally vital in the communications process. In other words, Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere cannot be an afterthought.
- Be prepared before hitting the launch button for the Facebook page. This is a critical part of the social media process. Brainstorm all of the possible critiques or problems, and develop potential responses or messaging so you don’t waste precious time that could escalate a social media snafu. For instance, if your business is a restaurant, be prepared to deal with claims that your food stinks, your servers are rude, your prices are outrageous, and your daily special gave someone food poisoning.
- Pay attention – all of the time – to what people are saying about your company and where they are saying it. Even if you don’t have a Facebook page, brands need to understand that there’s always a chance that people will talk about you online. Each comment needs to be evaluated individually to determine whether, how and when you should respond. There are no hard and fast rules, but generally speaking, you should be transparent, gracious and accountable (as appropriate). And, your response needs to be made in a prompt manner. The world of social media moves much faster than traditional communications, and any lag can just serve to fuel the fire. Sometimes just saying that you appreciate the comment and are looking into the issue is enough to quell the furor for a moment.
PR and social media are not mutually exclusive – and this could not be more evident than when it comes to crisis communications. I cannot stress this enough – companies must develop plans to handle situations whether in traditional or social media platforms, or else they could be found on the wrong side of a really angry and vocal Facebook contingent (again, please learn from Kraft).
Stay tuned as we talk more on this blog about crisis communications and social media. My guess is that neither is going anywhere anytime soon.
