How to Manage a Social Media Crisis: A Practical Guide for Brands

On social media, things can move blindingly fast. Sometimes, it’s an Instagram post of an egg going inexplicably viral. But sometimes, it’s a PR crisis that seems to come out of nowhere.

Your best chance to make it through a social media crisis is to prepare ahead of time. Have a solid plan, a list of key stakeholders and responsibilities, and a clear chain of command.

Of course, it’s even better if you can prevent a crisis before it begins.

In this post, we’ll look at methods for spotting potential issues as they emerge and how to shut a problem down in the early stages. If that doesn’t work, we’ll show you what to do if you end up with a full-blown social media crisis management situation on your hands.

Before the crisis

An organization adopting a proactive communication strategy should take the following into consideration:

  • Monitoring and response frameworks.
  • Identifying key online powers (people and entities).
  • Checking ownership of social media platforms.
  • Being clear on the resources needed in the event of a crisis.
  • Training the social media team.
  • Including social media in risk assessment procedures.
  • Controlling IT in the organization to ensure the required information gets out in due time.

Don’t Be Scared, Be Prepared

During the crisis

The damage has been done and the organization needs to rescue the situation. As you go about handling the situation through digital channels always:

  • Monitor the situation to know what people are saying about you.
  • Maintain consistency in messages sent across all channels.
  • Think about packaging content for every social media account.
  • Involve stakeholders to guard against rumors and wrong information.
  • Be quick at responding especially if you have the right answers to queries.
  • Reinforce accurate, updated communication across all departments and branches.

Social Media CrisisAfter the crisis

Just because you have the crisis handled does not mean that is all. There are other issues to be attended to which include:

  • Let your stakeholders know the crisis is over to restore the good name.
  • The crisis management review should look at what strategies worked, which ones failed and figure out ways to improve.

The size of an organization is not a factor when a crisis occurs. Whether big or small, the organization requires an efficient digital communication strategy. This will ensure the public and other key stakeholders have all the information they need about the crisis. Withholding information that should be in the public domain is disastrous, as people will make speculations that could hurt your brand. The pressure could be too much, but if you have a great communications department, there is nothing to worry about.

If you want to have an easier time during a crisis, adhere to the before, during and after stages. If you at least foresaw a problem and planned on how to handle it, it will be much easier. This will help you regain consumers’ trust and your brand’s reputation.

8 Social Media Crisis Management Tips for Businesses and Brands

  1. Create a Social Media Policy

The best way to avoid any type of social media crisis is to create a solid social media policy for your company. It should provide clear guidelines to those who are posting on your brand page. Your social media policy will be different based on factors like your industry and the size of your company. Following are some subjects all social media policies should include:

  • Guidelines for Copyright
  • Guidelines for Privacy
  • Guidelines for Confidentiality
  • Guidelines for Bran
  1. Secure Your Accounts

Poor passwords and other social media security risks can quickly expose your brand to a social media crisis. In many cases, employees are more likely to cause a cyber-security crisis than hackers are. Do not share passwords among the various members of your team who need access to your social accounts. Always use systems like Hootsuite to control use permissions and grant the appropriate level of access. If you have a centralize access, then it also allows you to revoke access for employees who leave the company or move to a role that no longer requires them to post on social.

  1. Use Social Listening to Identify Potential Issues

A good social listening program can track and analyze an emerging issue on social media well before it turns into a crisis. Monitoring brand mentions can give you some advanced warning about crises. But if you really want to keep an eye out for a potential social media crisis, you should be monitoring social mentions daily. Social mentions is a metric that captures how people feel and talk about your brand on social platforms. There are many paid and free tools available that gives you advance warning of a crisis while it’s still in the early stages.

  1. Define What Counts as a Crisis to You

Many times people say rude things about you online. That maybe their experience, not actually a crisis. But if many people are saying the same negative things about you on social, all at the same time, that might be a crisis—or a potential crisis waiting to explode. What really identifies a social media crisis for a brand is a major negative change in the online conversation. Even if a many people posting negatively about your brand, it may be best to respond through customer service channels.

  1. Craft a Crisis Communication Plan

A company-detailed social media crisis communication plan allows you to respond quickly to any potential issue. Instead of debating how to handle things, you can take action and prevent things from getting out of control. Acting quick is important when any crises arises.  Your crises management plan should describe the exact steps everyone will take on social media during a crisis—from top executives to the most junior employees.

  1. Engage – but don’t argue

When you post on social media and people start giving negative comments then you need to be calm and get engage with the comments instead of starting argument on public platform.  As we’re talking about social media crises, simply issuing statements won’t cut it. You need to have to engage with people who may be saying very negative things about you brand on social platforms. Keep your replies short and avoid getting pulled into a long discussion of what went wrong.

  1. Communicate Internally

Communicating with team members is a crucial part of your crisis management response. This keeps everyone on the same page and will help to prevent misinformation and the spread of rumors. You need to make sure that everyone in the organization knows exactly what they should (or should not) say about the crisis on social media.

  1. Learn From the Experience

When you make it through your first social media crisis, take the time to debrief and examine what happened in past. Always keep a detailed record of everything you did, and how well it worked.

Take the time to examine your future social media plan. Think about what new you could add that would prevent a similar crisis from occurring in the future. And always review your crisis communication plan to look for opportunities to incorporate lessons learned.

Retail how to adapt to new times

In science fiction movies or set in a hypothetical future, one of the points that usually or used to show and that always attracted attention were the shopping streets. In a moment, the protagonist of the story ends up in a busy street, in which the cars are very different from those of now (yes, they are usually flying or something similar) and in which the stores are totally futuristic. It is a constant when futuristic forecasts are made: the products change and the process of relating to them also does so. Things appear practically alone, the dependents are robotic elements, the store is able to know everything about the consumer?

Many times it has already reached the exact moment that these futuristic films represented (and that is not exactly as it appeared in the story), but the truth is that these stories are saying much more than you might think about how the experience of the future should be. customer in these modern times. The cars may not fly and are not able to skip the traffic jams, but the truth is that things have changed. Retail has to adapt to modern times if it wants to continue connecting with consumers and if it wants to keep up with what consumers’ expectations take

What do consumers expect from the immediate future? How should the stores of the near future be? Although it may seem like a sci-fi movie cliché, stores must increasingly use technology and have to do so because the consumer has become an advanced user of it. If the buyer needs to access the information at all times, if he uses multiple connected devices and if he has experiences that include more and more elements and more and more scenarios, the brands have no choice but to play with it and have it very much in mind to create the experiences that fit your new needs.

The buyer of the present is already an omnichannel buyer, so he also needs an omnichannel customer service. That is to say, the consumer experience is no longer in compartments and the relationship with the brand is no longer carried out only one way or another. Now, consumers are everywhere and they use all the contact channels and all the tools at the same time and the brands have to be up to this challenge.

And this necessarily has a direct impact on the retail and on the sales strategy. After years of reducing everything to a comparative analysis between ecommerce and physical stores and establishing again and again that only one can emerge victorious from the battle, it is time to analyze what is actually happening in the market and see that consumers They want experiences every time in which the lines of separation are more and more diffuse between one channel and another and in which the marks are able to measure up.

The future of retail linked to ecommerce

Does retail have to reinvent itself? The analysts have it clear, as they are also clear that not only should they make a change. As they point out in an analysis at Phys, drawing conclusions from a study by researchers at Singapore Management University, ecommerce must also reinvent itself and be able to change its position. They have to be able to unite all digital with a constant flow of physical products they want to be able to compete actively. In front of them, the stores have to be able to merge their physical presence with a boom of techie elements.

And, in general, all of them have to be able to position themselves in front of the new challenges and to understand which are the new demands that they have to fulfill. After all, it is no longer about some going on one side and others on the other. The sellers of physical stores themselves have started selling online to compete with the push of electronic commerce. Everyone needs to be able to improve their inventory management, to have the best logistics services (the delivery of the product is a crucial moment of electronic commerce) or to be able to multiply their geographical presence in terms of storage to offer better results

This has several ramifications. As pointed out in the conclusions, more and more holistic approaches to sales will be taken into account. That is, instead of completely separating ecommerce and commerce from always, more and more firms will be using their physical stores to provide service and support to online sales. On the other hand, every time the online stores will have much more relation with the logistics part. That is, it will become more and more usual for me to sell it, I will give it. This will happen not only with the products themselves but also with those sold through the store, that is, the products of third parties (as Amazon does).

And in parallel are also emerging new elements that can work to simplify deliveries, such as creating new tools that allow deliveries remain in the hands of individuals to save costs (what is known as the uberization of ecommerce).

Technology enters the store

But the truth is that the changes experienced by the retail or that must live are not only linked to the relationship established with electronic commerce, but also are very marked by the technological advances that are emerging and the positive reaction of consumers to the same. Buyers want more and more information, more personalized services and more memorable experiences and stores have no choice but to resort to technology for it.

The future will therefore be full of intelligent testers, which will allow consumers to have more than simply the image of how they have the product, and screens that will give access to more information about the store and what it sells. Artificial intelligence will create much more complex and much more efficient assistants, while virtual reality will offer more immersive and memorable experiences.

The stores will be increasingly complex scenarios in which consumers will have more and more elements at their disposal.

Shortcuts guide for social networks 2015

For professionals who are more than 14 hours a day connected and users in general who want to optimize their time and productivity, this shortcuts guide for social networks 2015 is a very interesting and essential resource for today’s Community managers.I share with you the infographic shortcuts guide for social networks. I hope you find it as useful as I am.

10 Tips for starting an online store

After having created a few online stores for our clients, we have seen that there is a series of details that are repeated in all these works and we have decided to make a small vademecum of how to set up an online store.

If you are an entrepreneur and you are clear that the future is in the new technologies, you may have come to the conclusion that an online store is the best possible window to sell your product and that millions of eyes around the world can see what you have what to offer But if you want to start, you must make a list of duties and see where you have controlled and what problems you have to decide. You will need a solution for each of the following needs; What is clear is that you will have to do it before or after if you want to open your online store.

But let’s go in parts, so that the first advice you should take into account is that everything must be done step by step and ensuring very well what should be the digital foundations of your future business. For it:

1- Decide what you are going to sell and get organized

Investigate the Internet in search of similar businesses. It is not about copying, but about learning what strengths and weaknesses your competition has and, more importantly, what sets you apart from them.

It is fundamental to structure the set of your items for sale. So that users do not get lost, you will have to make a main menu that includes the main product groups. This menu is recommendable that does not contain more than 7 elements. This will not be too complicated for the user. The fewer elements and options, the better. From each of them, you can pick up sub-menus that group new divisions of the product. It is not advisable to do further subdivisions after these.

A tip: The most advisable thing is that you take blank papers and in each one put a category of your products. If you have a comic shop, write is a sheet, for example, MANGA. Fill as many sheets as necessary to be able to group all the product of your future online store. Try to collect them by groups of similar items. These would be the main menu, each sheet would be the submenu. This system works, we assure you.

2- Design a good strategy and create your brand

Set yourself realistic goals in the medium and long term (one year), start developing your personal brand which includes a good design, a name, a logo … an image that is the one that serves to recognize your product and that is durable in time

3- Social Networks and Blog

Fundamental for the promotion of any business and more if it is on the Internet. Have a Facebook page, a Twitter profile, and promote blog entries with both your products and relevant information of the sector in which your business model is inserted. The image of all these profiles must be the same that accompanies the web of your brand.

4- Marketing Strategy

Do you already have the store? Now you want to sell, right? Well, just as it would happen to you if you open a store in the middle of a forest, the same thing will happen to you with your online store: No one will pass in front of your shop window. You need visibility And that is achieved through advertising and work.

There are different ways to advertise:
SEM, paying Google to appear in the sponsored search results.
SEO, where you appear on Google because of the importance of your page. Free of charge, but with a lot of effort and time.
More channels: with brochures, advertisements, social networks, blog, etc …
In short, you’ll have to get people to see your store. Keep in mind that the conversion ratio of sale in a shopping cart is around 2%, so you’ll have to take many people to your store to sell a few items.

5- Positioning

Do not forget that your business is on the Internet and that, therefore, you must optimize your keywords and your links to try to be at the top of the search either in generic search engines or in those specialized in the product that offers

6- Take care of your client

As in a traditional business, the client must be the center of our efforts. In the case of an online store, establish secure payment systems (paypal, for example) and hire a good transport service for your products or services. These are the important details that make the difference. Enable a complaints and suggestions mailbox to collect opinions and know what works well and what you should improve.

7- Take care of your product

Pamper the image of what you are going to sell, offer quality images and from different angles so that potential buyers have access to all the visual and technical information of your products. Do not forget that it is better to have few products and quality than many and poorly managed.

8- Contact experts

It is clear that, unless your knowledge is very advanced, the work that comes before you is huge for what you should trust and practice alliances with experts to help you optimize the aspects over which you have no control or knowledge. Trust them

9- Keep your business in order

Renew stocks, inform if the products are finished, keep your page up to date and do not forget to incorporate new utilities and applications to make the user’s experience more and more pleasant.

10- Innovate and be creative

One of the keys in any business is to offer something different from the rest. Do not be afraid to innovate or bet on new paths; It is not about trying to prove, but trying to show all your creativity and put it at the service of your business.

First of all, and as you have seen, setting up an online store requires an exercise in patience and dedication that you must undertake on a daily basis. Check our services page and stay tuned for the next calls in this blog and on our website.

How to measure the effectiveness of your blog

1.Compare the natural growth of the visits first to the blog – and then the average visits for each post – with respect to the same period last year. Do the same with bounce%, traffic sources, social conversions, unique visitors, page views and the average stay in your site – and average in each post.

2.Measure the number of people who have unsubscribed in your newsletter, email subscription or RSS in the last month / quarter / semester / year. This way you will know if your content is accurate, if your community is interesting and if there is a connection with your readers. According to the calculations that I continue to make in my blogs and in others with which I have contact, the average rate usually ranges between 2-3% per month, at most.

3. On the other side. Check how many subscribers there are via RSS, how many via email and if you have a newsletter subscription, how many subscribers do you receive. You can calculate it weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.

4. The volume of comments you receive in each post. The more comments you receive the more popular your blog is, the more popular, the more read it is, the more you read the more you visit and the more visited, the more conversions you should have.

5. The number of “leads” you receive weekly / monthly. By “leads” I understand business opportunities, these are set by each person depending on the type, field, industry and purpose of the blog. It can be a budget for the advice of the decoration of a house in an interior design blog. It can be the request or question of the clothes that you described in your fashion blog. It can also be the  contact of a business interested in a PR action on your advertising blog or the proposal of an agency that wants to hire you as a     speaker at a gastronomic event through your gastronomy blog.

Without using any social mechanism (twitter, facebook, google +, menéame, etc.) that reach your posts. It will help you to measure the true influence that your blog has on its own.

6. Of the visits you receive in each post, how many actually perform the action you want. That is, how many visitors click on the “call to action” that takes them to the online store of supplements, buy the theme you recommend or make a donation to the NGO with which you collaborate. Sometimes the same “call to action” may be that they respond in the comments to the question that you pose at the end or that they register for your event, webinar or conference.

7. Analyze the number of links to other blogs, posts or websites that obtain each of your posts. This is not only positive at the SEO level, but if you receive many links you will know that it is a valuable post and that others use it as a resource.

8.The recommendations among users that your blog obtains via the social web, on Twitter, Facebook, Google + or LinkedIn. It also applies the number of times your blog or post is saved as a bookmark in a social bookmarking site such as Del.ici.ous or Diigo.

What other ways to measure the effectiveness of a blog occur to you?

Via: Isra García