Planning for crises on social media, is it possible?
Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2024 3:42 am
Crisis… a big word, what does it imply? And most importantly, can it be planned?
When we talk about crises on Social Networks, in most situations we are referring to a moment of sustained criticism over time by the user or even temporary conflicts that should not be defined as a crisis.
So, what can we understand by crisis? A circumstantially unfavourable phase bosnia and herzegovina phone number list that causes a clear, forceful and measurable negative impact on the company's reputation. If a company's reputation is one of its greatest assets in terms of communication, a crisis will be any phase that causes changes in the perception of the company by its stakeholders.
But a crisis is not reached in two days. And I am not talking about time, but about the scenario. Therefore, it can be planned and structured . Monitoring and planning are the keys to control so that the bomb does not explode. Social networks, as platforms, allow us to monitor in real time to gain in response through anticipation.
So how do we start?
Finding and defining our triggers. That is, all those specific events or circumstances that can have a negative effect on our reputation and, as such, we must prevent and manage. A trigger is a potential detonator of a crisis. Each company has its own triggers, although there are triggers that can affect different companies in the same way.
Here is an infographic showing the main triggers that a company may face on social media:
Finding our triggers is an exercise in sincerity
Social media has an amazing ability to bring out the flaws of companies. It's not a question of trolls or stalkers. An angry user, a disappointed customer, will often look for our weakness and attack where it hurts the most. Many of the social media crises that have become famous in the online world began due to company flaws or bad practices.
If we do not want to risk being caught off guard, the path always begins by recognizing the company's weaknesses and then planning our response, our actions, and having a protocol of conduct within our crisis manual.
Are you wondering if we can control all the triggers?
Perhaps the problem is trying to be in control. The goal is not so much to control, but to anticipate and generate the best response. Keep in mind that triggers can be external to the company and also internal .
Internal triggers are harder to predict, but more scalable, and external triggers are usually easier to predict, but have a greater chance of causing problems.
In fact, the fact that a trigger is external or internal will also define how we will deal with it when it becomes the trigger for a crisis situation. For this reason, it is not only advisable to identify them but also to do so correctly as internal or external. In an internal trigger, it is assumed that the responsibility lies with the company and therefore said company should have control over the situation, e.g. a hacker attack on our servers. In external triggers, normally outside the company, we can argue that it is something that is outside our area of action , e.g. an earthquake.
A very easy example to understand is customer complaints. All companies have complaints, so it is one of those triggers that usually appears in almost all detections (because we all have customers and all customers tend, including me, to complain).
So, do you think this trigger is internal or external? There is no fixed answer. It depends on whether the customer complains because we have a product or service defect, so we will understand it as an internal trigger, or if he complains for no apparent reason. In this case we have to be very clear that this is the case, because we run the risk of approaching it as external, when in reality it is internal.
What is the first step to anticipate the crisis?
Know your company well and the risks it faces. Make a good mapping of internal and external triggers that reveals in depth all the risks you face . Starting with sincerity and honesty with the internal ones, such as those that we have already seen that our client will assume we must have under control because they belong to the company. But, without forgetting the external ones, because the fact that the company cannot foresee an earthquake does not mean that it cannot plan its response.
When we talk about crises on Social Networks, in most situations we are referring to a moment of sustained criticism over time by the user or even temporary conflicts that should not be defined as a crisis.
So, what can we understand by crisis? A circumstantially unfavourable phase bosnia and herzegovina phone number list that causes a clear, forceful and measurable negative impact on the company's reputation. If a company's reputation is one of its greatest assets in terms of communication, a crisis will be any phase that causes changes in the perception of the company by its stakeholders.
But a crisis is not reached in two days. And I am not talking about time, but about the scenario. Therefore, it can be planned and structured . Monitoring and planning are the keys to control so that the bomb does not explode. Social networks, as platforms, allow us to monitor in real time to gain in response through anticipation.
So how do we start?
Finding and defining our triggers. That is, all those specific events or circumstances that can have a negative effect on our reputation and, as such, we must prevent and manage. A trigger is a potential detonator of a crisis. Each company has its own triggers, although there are triggers that can affect different companies in the same way.
Here is an infographic showing the main triggers that a company may face on social media:
Finding our triggers is an exercise in sincerity
Social media has an amazing ability to bring out the flaws of companies. It's not a question of trolls or stalkers. An angry user, a disappointed customer, will often look for our weakness and attack where it hurts the most. Many of the social media crises that have become famous in the online world began due to company flaws or bad practices.
If we do not want to risk being caught off guard, the path always begins by recognizing the company's weaknesses and then planning our response, our actions, and having a protocol of conduct within our crisis manual.
Are you wondering if we can control all the triggers?
Perhaps the problem is trying to be in control. The goal is not so much to control, but to anticipate and generate the best response. Keep in mind that triggers can be external to the company and also internal .
Internal triggers are harder to predict, but more scalable, and external triggers are usually easier to predict, but have a greater chance of causing problems.
In fact, the fact that a trigger is external or internal will also define how we will deal with it when it becomes the trigger for a crisis situation. For this reason, it is not only advisable to identify them but also to do so correctly as internal or external. In an internal trigger, it is assumed that the responsibility lies with the company and therefore said company should have control over the situation, e.g. a hacker attack on our servers. In external triggers, normally outside the company, we can argue that it is something that is outside our area of action , e.g. an earthquake.
A very easy example to understand is customer complaints. All companies have complaints, so it is one of those triggers that usually appears in almost all detections (because we all have customers and all customers tend, including me, to complain).
So, do you think this trigger is internal or external? There is no fixed answer. It depends on whether the customer complains because we have a product or service defect, so we will understand it as an internal trigger, or if he complains for no apparent reason. In this case we have to be very clear that this is the case, because we run the risk of approaching it as external, when in reality it is internal.
What is the first step to anticipate the crisis?
Know your company well and the risks it faces. Make a good mapping of internal and external triggers that reveals in depth all the risks you face . Starting with sincerity and honesty with the internal ones, such as those that we have already seen that our client will assume we must have under control because they belong to the company. But, without forgetting the external ones, because the fact that the company cannot foresee an earthquake does not mean that it cannot plan its response.