social media and crisis management
TRANSCRIPT
Social media and crisis management
A Cambridge Network breakfast seminar with Sue Keogh of Sookio
www.sookio.com Find us at: sookio.com and @sookio
plus LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram…
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Coming up!
• Using social media to avoid a crisis in the first place
• How you can use it for damage control
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• If someone attacks your brand and you aren’t present on social media, you’re at a disadvantage. You can’t fight back and restore your reputation.
• Like in any relationship, putting in the effort can reap rewards later on
• Develop a positive relationship through engaging with followers and quality content
• People are more likely to be supportive if something negative does happen
• So when people look you up, your voice is heard rather than people criticising your brand
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M&S take time to respond to people who post queries and complaints on their site, encouraging positive sentiment.
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Boots spend a lot of time responding to people on Twitter. Their positive tone encourages positive sentiment towards the brand. If something goes wrong with Boots – like being criticised for not paying taxes - these people are just a little bit less likely to join the baying mob on Twitter.
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What is a brand advocate?
• People who like your brand so much they’re willing to say positive things without being prompted – or paid!
• Some of the best brand advocates are your own employees
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YO! Sushi deal with a complaint politely and fairly, other customers back them up and the original complainant ends up almost apologising
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Leon are excellent at dealing with negative customer queries.
This one ends with the person sending a new tweet out to her network saying how well they dealt with the situation.
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Which channel to go for?
Blog: A platform to create original content. Also a place to get your side of the story across if something goes wrong.
Facebook. A great place to share images, video content, talk to customers and encourage loyalty
Twitter. Great for news updates, connecting with journalists, critics and people in the industry. Also for getting customer feedback and dealing with queries.
LinkedIn. Doesn’t eat up much time. Good for connecting with other professionals.
Why not add something visual to the mix, for example Pinterest, Flickr, Instagram, YouTube or Vimeo
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What are people saying on reviews sites about your brand? If it’s negative, it’s your opportunity to show how good you are at customer service. If it’s positive, even better. But don’t ignore them, be positive in return.
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However, he goes and blows it by getting all aggressive.
Try to keep your cool!
This small restaurant owner, who went on to TripAdvisor to respond to an accusation of food poisoning. He quite rightly points out that it could have been caused by all sorts of factors.
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Social media crisis policy
• Come up with 4-5 examples of what could go wrong in your business
• Create a crisis flowchart so you know who should do what, for what level of crisis
• Make sure everyone is briefed – well in advance!
• After the event – learn from what happened, then adapt the policy for next time
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Don’t panic!
• Think about your response. Be quick and decisive, but don’t act in haste.
• This also gives people the chance to get it out of their system. Let them vent for a bit and monitor the real pain points
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Think: Less is more
• If you are a major brand, don’t feel you have to respond to every single message
• Crisis management is a spectator sport! People love seeing a situation escalate over Twitter (popcorn anyone?)
• Remember the rule of 3. Never send a third reply. A third reply is an argument, not an answer. On the third reply, take it offline
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Talk it through internally
• Keep the team updated. Not everyone complains through the official channels.Your team needs to know the official line so they can put out a consistent message
• Get signoff from the top. Even if it means waking up the CEO on the other side of the world. They won’t want the crisis to escalate or to be on the back foot
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Your official response
• Acknowledge
• Say sorry (though think about liability)
• Offer a solution or positive outcome
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Your crisis HQ
• Put all the information about the crisis in one place:– Easy to keep updated– Point people here from social media– Saves you time
• Acknowledge the crisis• Give as much clear information as possible• What actions are you taking as a company?• How are you preventing this happening again?• How do people get compensation?• How do people contact you?
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Germanwings had a big section on their homepage saying ‘we are in mourning’ which links straight through to a page which has the latest information on developments since flight 4U9525 crashed.
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Telecoms provider O2 have some readymade help pages so they can answer a problem with a link.
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Case study: Protein World
• Protein World faced a backlash over their ‘beach body’ campaign. But rather than back down and apologise, they came out with all guns blazing
• If your brand is good enough it’s worth defending. Protein World were so confident they were rude to the naysayers:– Sticking up for loyal customers– Offending people who were never going to buy their product
• This may not be the right approach for you. But Protein World focused on developing customer loyalty and brand advocates… and ultimately increased revenue