By adaptive - October 3rd, 2012

The first installment of our two-part series of crisis management over social media covers how your business can recognise a crisis brewing early, setting up crisis plans and more

Crisis… what crisis?

Most businesses will have a crisis at some time or other. These are usually relatively minor, such as a temporary problem with product deliveries or short-term quality issues. Others can be potentially catastrophic, such as a freak accident causing loss of life, or a public scandal involving a prominent employee.

Unfortunately, many crises are made significantly worse because senior management either fail to recognise the issues, or simply deal with them in the wrong way. Having a crisis management plan in place should be de rigueur for every business: and these days, this plan must give social media a central role.

All businesses have problems from time to time – it comes with the territory – and it’s inevitable that some of these problems can be major ones. The question is how to control problems when they do arise, and how to stop a crisis from becoming a catastrophe.

As with most other business issues, the answer comes down to careful planning: every business should have a crisis-management plan, a set of procedures that are put into action when the first signs of a potential crisis appear. But before looking at the key elements of this plan, it’s worth starting with a look at what a business crisis is all about, because they tend to have common features.

Jonathan Bernstein, President of Bernstein Crisis Management Jonathan Bernstein, President of Bernstein Crisis Management defines a crisis as “any situation that is threatening or could threaten to harm people or property, seriously interrupt business, damage reputation and/or negatively impact stock value.”

It’s worth emphasising that crises – of the kind we are talking about here – are often unexpected, and things tend to develop very quickly. The impacts are also diverse: within a very short time-frame, large numbers of disparate individuals can be affected, including employees, suppliers, customers, shareholders and members of the general public, with constant and urgent demands for information, action – and, frequently, someone to blame.

Prevention: better than cure

So, how to create an effective crisis response/management plan? Risk assessment has been criticised as a discipline, sometimes with reason, but looking at what can go wrong has to be the starting point with any crisis management plan.

Steve Wilson, President of crisis management consultants The Wilson GroupSteve Wilson, President of crisis management consultants The Wilson Group says that risk assessment can actually prevent some crises happening in the first place, because it “can often force you to take actions to eliminate a potential crisis.” Looking at what can go wrong can lead to new thinking on procedures, training, or safety measures: it’s an old adage, but prevention really is better than cure. This is even more important today, as social media is so engrained into a business’ operations that preventing a crisis across these networks is vital to sustain your business’ reputation and customer base.

It will never be possible to eliminate completely the potential for crises, so once threats have been identified, it’s essential to plan carefully how to respond if something does go wrong. In this context, it is not about dealing with the specific cause of the crisis: if the warehouse catches fire, it’s the job of the emergency services to put it out. What the crisis management plan must do is help the business deal with the aftermath in a way which minimises its impact.

Social media usage must now form part of this planning. Every person in your organisation must be aware of your policy regarding social media. If a crisis does occur that originates on a social media network, your crisis plan will be able to cope with this incident, as you have formulated actions to deal with the issues that have arisen.

Kate Hartley of social communications agency Carrot Communications says the plan “should include crisis scenarios and plans to manage them, including draft holding statements, agreed tone of voice, escalation processes, sign-off procedure and so on”.

Central to the plan is the crisis management team, which takes responsibility for monitoring potential crises and acting accordingly. Kate Hartley emphasises the importance of having decision-makers on the team: “For less serious issues, you might be able to avoid the crisis by taking swift action...If you get it right early on you can even turn a minor issue into a positive experience, by listening to customers and acting quickly.”

Social media usage must now form part of this planning. Every person in your organisation must be aware of your policy regarding social media. If a crisis does occur that originates on a social media network, your crisis plan will be able to cope with this incident, as you have formulated actions to deal with the issues that have arisen.

Training, training, training

Perhaps the single most important element to crisis management is training. Depending on the severity of the potential crisis, this might include live practices, to ensure that everyone involved knows their job and can carry it out effectively. Media training is vital for front-line spokespersons, but other staff also need training in how to refer enquiries to relevant team members.

http://mashable.com/2012/09/25/social-media-screw-ups/One specific aspect of crisis management that has changed in recent years is the role of social media. As Steve Wilson notes, a good plan “has to take social media into consideration, in the same way it used to consider television or newspapers.” This is because news of and reactions to a crisis can reach Twitter, YouTube, Facebook – even company forums and blogs – way before they make it to the traditional media. Social media can make a crisis worse by spreading bad news, but it can also be used to communicate with the market and show how a business is being responsible in dealing with a particular issue.

It’s vitally important that staff know how, when and if to use social media in times of crisis. Impress on everyone that social media is not private: and carelessness can be very costly indeed. Given the damage that a misplaced tweet or Facebook post can do, responsible use of social media should be a key part of conditions of employment. And when a crisis breaks, there is an argument for actually restricting social media use until the business situation is clarified.

It also makes sense for a business to build social media communities of employees, customers and suppliers before a crisis kicks off: this can be achieved through positive responses to minor issues, accepting and using feedback – both positive and negative – and by respecting the points of view of community members. Sympathetic reactions by a social community can be invaluable in reducing the business impact of a crisis, especially if this is allied to smooth and effective communication through other media.

The key steps in crisis management include: analyse, plan, train and review should be refreshed and renewed regularly. Test the plan critically, and if anything is even slightly out of line, change it. When – or if – a crisis occurs, response needs to be fast and efficient: get it wrong, and social media will ensure that the world knows about it very quickly.

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