Crises happen, whether you like it or not, so you'd better be prepared! Many companies have standard procedures for handling crises and this really works wonders. Nowadays, however, the internet makes crisis situations more challenging since it enables them to spread very rapidly. Nevertheless, the internet also enables you to detect crises before they explode in your face. There is no need to monitor 24/7. If you have a social media management tool, you can receive an email notification when something is going on!
1. Email alert for sudden peak in mentions online
It is possible to activate email alerts when there is a sudden increase in the amount of messages about your brand online. You can also specify this if you only want to receive notifications when there is a peak in maybe Facebook messages or in messages with a negative sentiment. However, it's always safest to keep it more general. A false alarm is always possible but better safe than sorry.
2. Check top conversations to discover the crisis and determine magnitude
In only a few clicks you can get an idea of what is going and how big the crisis is. Just check the top conversations of that day and click through to check how many messages there already are. Once you are in the know of the context, you can filter all your monitoring results on the relevant keywords to get a perfect overview of the situation. Sort your inbox from old to new messages to discover the roots of the crisis: a tweet, Facebook post or maybe a news article?
3. Get on top of the crisis
Based on the information you gather in only 5 minutes you can determine the strategy to tackle the situation. If you have already worked on crisis strategy beforehand this won't take much time. The most probable reaction is to communicate: a press release, a tweet, maybe a Facebook post. Make sure people know you are aware of the situation, you are working on it and keep them informed. For sure they don't expect personal answers in times like these. They just want to be in the know of what is going on and what you are doing to solve it.
This might be a superfluous statement but oh so important: key to crisis management is communication! Keep people informed and make sure you are involved in the conversation. If you have a tool monitoring your brand 24/7 and alerting you whenever a crisis might be lurking, you can always tackle it at its roots.