If your company has an active social media presence, then it will likely endure a crisis at some point. A social media crisis doesn’t necessarily lead to a failed business or social media marketing plan, but it does require some crisis management actions to ensure your reputation doesn’t take a significant hit. It’s important to develop a plan before a crisis occurs, so you know what you’ll do during it, and then learn from it once the dust settles. These tips can help you handle a social media crisis in stride whenever one occurs.

Put Together A Social Media Crisis Management Plan Now

As with any online digital marketing plan, it’s important to secure all of your social media accounts to better ensure unauthorized people can’t access them. Disgruntled former employees may share passwords with other people and potentially lead to compromising the account. And it’s always important to monitor what people are saying about your company to defuse any issues before they become more widespread. When it comes to social media and marketing, you don’t have a lot of time to react, so taking action immediately when a problem arises is ideal for preventing larger issues.

Never Hide During A Social Media Crisis

No matter how strict your social media guidelines are within your company, something will eventually happen that your followers and customers won’t like. If there is widespread negativity about a particular post you made, the first thing you should do is to pause any scheduled posts you have. You’ll just add fuel to the fire if you continue with your social media marketing plan since it may be perceived as if you don’t care about the current issues. And most importantly, never hide from a social media crisis since silence is arguably the worst thing for your reputation. Acknowledge the crisis in a professional manner, communicate how you will respond and the actions you will take, and continue engaging with your followers. Defending your position won’t do any good, and sometimes it’s best to simply reiterate your position without engaging in back-and-forth dialogue.

Use The Experience To Learn And Improve

No matter how bad the social media crisis is, always look for ways to improve. Reflecting on what caused the crisis to begin with is a good place to start. It could be that you simply need to have another person review each post before it’s scheduled to determine whether anything could be misinterpreted. Get together with your team to brainstorm ideas and refine your social media crisis plan accordingly. The important thing is to remain calm without panicking but still engage with your followers and potential customers.

Blazing Social is here to help you design a social media marketing plan that minimizes the risk of dealing with a social media crisis. But even if one occurs, we are experienced in helping defuse the situation professionally while also maintaining your positive business reputation. It all begins with a thorough and detailed online digital marketing plan, so contact us today, and we would be happy to help you get started.