{"id":3128,"date":"2015-06-05T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lcn.com\/blog\/?p=3128"},"modified":"2021-07-08T09:17:53","modified_gmt":"2021-07-08T08:17:53","slug":"how-to-create-a-social-media-plan-for-emergencies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lcn.com\/blog\/how-to-create-a-social-media-plan-for-emergencies\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Create a Social Media Plan for Emergencies"},"content":{"rendered":"

In any business, things can go wrong. And, whether it’s a crisis, an emergency, or an embarrassing faux pas, customers, partners, and the media head straight to a brand’s social media presence for a response.<\/p>\n

Is your business prepared for this kind of occasion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

While you may hope that you will never find yourself in a crisis, sometimes things get out of control.<\/p>\n

Perhaps an offensive tweet was sent out from your brand’s account by accident, a PR crisis is going viral, or a hashtag campaign has gone horribly, horribly wrong.<\/p>\n[Tweet “Prepare for the worst and create a social media plan for emergencies.”]\n

The best way to prepare for an emergency is to plan in advance.<\/p>\n

Work out the best approach for dealing with a range of crises ahead of time so that, should an emergency arise, you and your staff know what to do.<\/p>\n

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Setting up a social-media crisis plan<\/h2>\n

In a crisis, modern-day consumers seek out a brand’s social presence. Social media’s status as a real-time communication tool can be ideal for a business that is hoping to disseminate accurate information quickly.<\/p>\n

Take these 11 steps to make sure your social-media crisis plan is ready to go, should the worst happen:<\/p>\n

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1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Build good social relationships\u00a0<\/h2>\n

Don’t leave your social-media accounts out in the wilderness until there is an emergency. To generate goodwill in the event of a crisis, make sure you are consistently active and building positive relationships.<\/p>\n

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2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Create brand guidelines<\/h2>\n

Put policies in place about how your social communications should be managed.<\/p>\n

Can customer-care staff on Twitter use humour to deflect a complaint? Do members of staff use their names in their communications? Should messages with errors in them be deleted?<\/p>\n

The more familiar your social-media communicators are with your brand guidelines, the more likely they will be to be able to implement them effectively, even during a crisis.<\/p>\n

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3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Have a ‘listening’ plan in place<\/h2>\n

Sometimes, the first you know about a crisis is an influx of angry tweets or outraged Facebook messages.<\/p>\n

The nature of social media means that a business can quickly gauge public opinion; the messages you receive will rapidly clue you into what your customers or colleagues think, so if you’re not paying attention to your social feeds, you could take far too long to detect the problem.<\/p>\n

This could lead to a rapid escalation of negative public feeling. So make sure you have a social-media monitoring<\/a><\/u> plan set up.<\/p>\n

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\"hootsuite\"
\nHootsuite<\/a> is a great way to stay on top of Tweets and monitor any mentions of your bra<\/em>nd<\/p>\n

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4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Identify the problem<\/h2>\n

Once you have become aware that there is a problem, do your best to get a clear picture of what has taken place:<\/p>\n

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