Social media mishaps happen all time. Most of them occur because of silly mistakes, no procedure or policies or simply because businesses don’t understand social media. There are plenty of examples where companies have got it wrong.
One of the worst slips up that a company could make occurred a couple of month ago when American Apparel posted a photo of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion (which occurred in 1986 killing 7 people) on the Fourth of July as fireworks display (it looked nothing like fireworks). It was reblogged on Thumblr apparently not realising what they were posting. The company later removed the post and apologised on Twitter.
Another example was the NYPD’s Twitter campaign which asked residents to share photos of themselves with officers. Instead of providing positive examples, many individuals uploaded photos of alleged police brutality, although positive pictures were also uploaded.
These examples illustrate the fact that no one is immune from social media bungles. It also demonstrates how organisations can no longer expect to control social media conversations and businesses must take the good with the bad. This applies to any business, large or small.
So what can SMEs do? Remember the following strategies to assist you to manage the situation:
Keep Calm:
When you’re faced with a crisis, your natural reaction is to panic particularly when it involves something like social media and your business. Instead, if you stop for a minute, take a deep breath and keep calm, clear thinking will prevail. Panicking will only make the situation worse and you won’t be able to manage the situation effectively.
Don’t Delete:
One of the most common things businesses do in a social media crisis is delete the post or tweet that created the commotion. This is the last thing you should do as deleting it won’t make the situation better. It will actually make the situation worse as it only draws attention to the mistake or mishap and looks like you are trying to avoid or hide something.
However, of course there are times when deleting is appropriate, as in the case of racially offensive, sexist or pornographic content. Here it is usually better to delete. However, leave a comment as to why the content was deleted.
Own the Mistake:
Businesses are not great at owning up to mistakes. They use PR spin, denials or policy to hide behind an error. However, acknowledging the mistake, taking responsibility and admitting you got it wrong goes a long way to keeping your reputation intact.
Make sure you promote how you are going to fix the problem and then make sure you do. And if necessary and needed make sure you apologise publicly on social media. Customers will accept this and not judge you harshly if it is a one off.
Assess and Learn:
Once the heat has gone off the situation, assess what happened to work out what went wrong. This is the only way you are able to review what processes weren’t followed or what policies you may need. Was the social media policy followed? If your business doesn’t have a social media policy, this is an ideal time to implement one so that your business can avoid something similar occurring again.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to ‘tweet’ or ‘repost’ this article or leave your comments….
Want to find out more about Anna, take a look at her website or Facebook page.
Tags: managing a social media crisis • Managing Social Media • Negative Comments on Social Media • Social media crisis
What Business Needs do when a Social Media Crisis Strikes
Social media mishaps happen all time. Most of them occur because of silly mistakes, no procedure or policies or simply because businesses don’t understand social media. There are plenty of examples where companies have got it wrong.
One of the worst slips up that a company could make occurred a couple of month ago when American Apparel posted a photo of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion (which occurred in 1986 killing 7 people) on the Fourth of July as fireworks display (it looked nothing like fireworks). It was reblogged on Thumblr apparently not realising what they were posting. The company later removed the post and apologised on Twitter.
Another example was the NYPD’s Twitter campaign which asked residents to share photos of themselves with officers. Instead of providing positive examples, many individuals uploaded photos of alleged police brutality, although positive pictures were also uploaded.
These examples illustrate the fact that no one is immune from social media bungles. It also demonstrates how organisations can no longer expect to control social media conversations and businesses must take the good with the bad. This applies to any business, large or small.
So what can SMEs do? Remember the following strategies to assist you to manage the situation:
Keep Calm:
When you’re faced with a crisis, your natural reaction is to panic particularly when it involves something like social media and your business. Instead, if you stop for a minute, take a deep breath and keep calm, clear thinking will prevail. Panicking will only make the situation worse and you won’t be able to manage the situation effectively.
Don’t Delete:
One of the most common things businesses do in a social media crisis is delete the post or tweet that created the commotion. This is the last thing you should do as deleting it won’t make the situation better. It will actually make the situation worse as it only draws attention to the mistake or mishap and looks like you are trying to avoid or hide something.
However, of course there are times when deleting is appropriate, as in the case of racially offensive, sexist or pornographic content. Here it is usually better to delete. However, leave a comment as to why the content was deleted.
Own the Mistake:
Businesses are not great at owning up to mistakes. They use PR spin, denials or policy to hide behind an error. However, acknowledging the mistake, taking responsibility and admitting you got it wrong goes a long way to keeping your reputation intact.
Make sure you promote how you are going to fix the problem and then make sure you do. And if necessary and needed make sure you apologise publicly on social media. Customers will accept this and not judge you harshly if it is a one off.
Assess and Learn:
Once the heat has gone off the situation, assess what happened to work out what went wrong. This is the only way you are able to review what processes weren’t followed or what policies you may need. Was the social media policy followed? If your business doesn’t have a social media policy, this is an ideal time to implement one so that your business can avoid something similar occurring again.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to ‘tweet’ or ‘repost’ this article or leave your comments….
Want to find out more about Anna, take a look at her website or Facebook page.
Tags: managing a social media crisis • Managing Social Media • Negative Comments on Social Media • Social media crisis