Preparing For a Crisis

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

Being able to respond effectively to a crisis is very important. However, it’s even more important to be prepared for a crisis. In fact, this is a crucial part of the crisis management process. The better your preparation, the better you’ll be able to respond when a crisis actually happens.

What is a crisis?

Before you can plan for one, you need to have a clear definition of what constitutes a crisis. Not every customer complaint is a crisis, after all! You need to be able to distinguish between a Twitter rant and a genuine risk to your brand reputation. And think about different levels of crisis. Categorize crises based on conceivable or likely worst-case scenarios.

Every business and industry faces different crises. Pharmaceutical companies worry about different risks than video games publishers do. But both have a good idea of what the worst ones could be. And they should be able to plot out what they would do in the event of each.

Social media policy

To execute effective crisis management, a company must have a number of procedures and policies already in place. Then people will know how to act in a crisis. 

Because of social media, a brand crisis can quickly spiral out of control. So it’s crucial that a company has a detailed social media policy. 

Remember, as in the case of HMV, some crises start with an employee’s misuse of the company’s social media accounts. This can be accidental, such as inadvertently posting the wrong information on a social media account. Or it could be malicious, where employees use social media platforms to air their grievances. 

So you can see why it’s important to have a robust policy which defines who has access to social media accounts, at what level, and exactly how the company uses social media. These guidelines will make a social media crisis less likely. 

Define copyright guidelines

Such a policy should first define copyright guidelines. Companies can find themselves in trouble if they share copyright material without proper permission or source recognition. Pay particular attention to copyright of photos and images. Your company should define how it uses and curates other people’s content.

Outline privacy guidelines

The social media policy should also outline privacy guidelines. Employees need to know how to interact with customers and discuss their personal data. And then need to know when it’s more appropriate to take conversations offline to a private space.

Explain confidentiality guidelines

Make sure your employees are also aware of the company’s confidentiality guidelines. They must understand what company information is for public consumption and what must be kept confidential. The leaking of confidential information or trade secrets can lead to a serious crisis for a company. 

Establish tone of voice guidelines

It’s very important for your company to have brand tone of voice guidelines. These outline how the brand ‘speaks’ to its customers. 

•      What language should you use? 
•      Is the tone formal or casual? 
•      How should you talk about specific products and brand terms? 

Aim to cover all aspects of customer interaction. 

•      How should staff address customers? 
•      How should they sign off communications? 
•      What information do they need to include in email subject lines and footers? 

Staff also need to be guided on how to deal with praise, complaints, and questions from customers. This should go right down to the detailed level of the exact structure of a response message.

Keep it simple

Although you may have many detailed documents and guidelines, it’s important to also have a simple crisis response plan. It’s a one-page document defining the main broad categories of incident and personnel to be notified in the event of each, with full contact details. It also outlines initial response guidelines, if any. 

Make it easy to find

All of this information must be readily accessible by anyone who is in a capacity to act in any way. A shared drive, Dropbox folder, or other cloud location makes sense for this. 

It’s crucial that staff are aware of the general principles, but also have access to the detail anytime, anywhere. People will not be able to remember every detail, but they need to know where they should go to get those details.

Control access to social media accounts

It’s crucial that admin access to social media accounts is limited to as few people as possible. And admins should be able to grant or revoke access to anyone at a moment’s notice. 

Passwords to these admin accounts or third-party management tools should be very complex and secure. This reduces the risk of unauthorized access to the accounts. These can be generated randomly using a password tool such as random.org. Or you could use Google Chrome’s suggested password feature.