Woolworths’ “fresh in our memories” campaign another reminder of how social media can impact a brand

Social media impacts your business in multiple ways. Negative information can spread quickly over many platforms increasing the opportunity for damage to your brand to be more detrimental.

Woolworths’ tribute to the Anzac tradition is another reminder of how social media campaigns can backfire. The “fresh in our memories” campaign in anticipation of the upcoming centenary of the World War I Gallipoli campaign on 25th April went terribly wrong in the past couple of days. Woolworths’ attempt to tie the loss in war and the Anzac story to the “Fresh Food People” brand was met with a barrage of ridicule across social media.

PR disasters are not new, however, social media amplifies the mistake and some businesses mishandle the situation. One of the reasons for this is that most medium sized businesses don’t have a social media risk management plan to handle such situations.

Here are 4 tips that can improve business responses to social media.

Recognise Increased Velocity and Quantity
Acknowledge that information is spread quickly and to many people. The response time of a business needs to be immediate. Have strategies in place for dealing with such issues so that you are able to respond quickly. Ideally your responses should be part of your Social Media Policy. Once a crisis hits you need to have a pre-planned approach to action. If you need to plan how to respond once a crisis hits, it is already too late.

Be Transparent
It is important for your business to be up front and clear about the crisis from the beginning. Social media audiences ridicule PR attempts by organisations so any such attempt to use PR language will leave your business worse off. An apology is a great place to start. Communicate the facts otherwise there is the risk of being seen as trying to cover up something.

Create a Listening Post
This is simply a way of keeping across information about your organisation. It is a way of monitoring the flow of information and what people are saying in real time. Doing this allows you to identify emerging issues, recognise problems or potential risks before they become a crisis. Twitter is a great tool for listening.

Team Effort is Key
Working together as a team is a must. This ensues everyone is on the same page and knows their role. Hopefully such team work will prevent a crisis from occurring, however, if one does arise a team working together is vital to ensure that the situation is handled efficiently and immediately.

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Tags: Brand Reputation • managing a social media crisis • social Media • Social Media PR Disasters