There are lots of great tips out there for dealing with a crisis. One of the nicest, most succinct ones we’ve seen comes courtesy of Melissa Agnes and addresses the Top Ten Crisis Management Take-Aways from 2013. So, the team at Capstone decided our Christmas gift to you is the Ten Days of Crisis Management – You won’t find any maids a milking here, but you will find Kate’s deeper dives on Melissa’s list.
# 10. If you aren’t yet on social media (at the minimum, as a crisis preparedness strategy), you are so 2011!
It’s pretty commonplace now for most large organizations to be on social media – I’m hard pressed to find ones that aren’t. But smaller and mid-sized organizations, including municipalities and non-profits, have been more reluctant to get on board.
The one thing I hear most often from people reluctant to get their organizations on social media is “what if people say something bad about me?” Well here’s the thing. If you’re not on social media, you don’t know what people are saying about you. And worse, they’re having that conversation without you. At a minimum, a social media presence allows you to respond to correct misinformation or address issues you’re dealing with.
Imagine if Comcast or Jet Blue weren’t able to respond to their customer’s concerns and complaints. Twitter account or not, their customers would be tweeting their dissatisfaction.
Before a crisis ever happens, though, you need to use social media to your advantage.
A good crisis preparedness strategy starts with a good social media strategy to build a positive reputation around your brand. Build a following of loyal consumers, friends, and third-parties to validate your organization. Tell the many positive successes of your business, non-profit, restaurant or store.
With that good reputation already out there, you’ll be better prepared to address a crisis online.
For the organizations that are still reluctant, I tell them to start small, and start manageable. Get yourself on one or two platforms, and plan out some content for a few days each week. Think ahead as to what issues may be likely to arise in your business, and how you may need to respond to them, so you’re not blindsided. And make sure someone in your organization has the role of posting to social media clearly defined, so that someone is regularly checking and updating.
As for the crisis preparedness strategy… stay tuned for the next ten days! We’ve got nine more blogs scheduled that dig deeper into Melissa Agnes’s top ten list!
Kate Venne is the Director of Public Relations at Capstone National Partners.
Follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
The views in this blog post represent the viewpoints of individual team members, not Capstone National Partners as a whole.
