Don't make the mistake of waiting for a social media crisis to hit before you have a plan in place. You may think you're in the world's most noncontroversial business, or that you couldn't have a better relationship with your customers, whether they're consumer or B2B. Those things can both be true, and still, you will one day find your brand facing explosive negative attention in social channels.
At the center of any good plan is the team you organize to jump into action when crisis hits. That team needs to have the authority to post a response. In other words, anyone whose input is required before a response can be made needs to be on the team.
Keep in mind that social crises are a sure way to attract the attention of the executive team. How you handle a crisis will either redouble or alleviate their suspicion that social is dangerous, unmanageable, and not to be trusted. So when it comes to your response teams, you want to make sure you have the best set of decision makers in the room.
Likely candidates include:
• Social media experts: These team members will help research the situation and give color to the issue at hand to help in gauging the potential response. They will also help define the best method, tone, and location for a response.
• PR and corporate communications teams: PR teams have experience and often topic-specific knowledge that will assist in drafting the response. They're likely to need to approve any sensitive response. However, it's also important to adapt the approach to the dynamics of social media, which are different from traditional PR models.
• Legal, regulatory, and corporate affairs teams: These team members will aid in advising about what can and can't be said. Legal teams are not included to offer input on tone and voice. Let them know up front that fan/customer expectations, not legalese, need to determine the language of the response.
• Subject matter experts: If an issue is known or recurring (for example, if your company has been repeatedly targeted by a particular interest group), you ideally will have participants who intimately know the history of that issue, the causes, solutions, the depth of influence, etc. Guidance from these team members will ensure that you have the full scope of the issue before you respond to something you perceive as a one-off issue, but that may recur.
• Business owner: This is the team member that owns the area that hosts the social media site or is charged with social listening and response. This person has the final sign-off on any response to the event. The hierarchy level of this person will likely vary based on the severity of an event. Small and inconsequential events will likely have a middle manager in this role. Large events with high brand risk will likely require a higher-level decision maker.
Once you have your team, make sure you remove any practical blocks to internal communication by creating a contact list for your crisis team that's adequately maintained; regularly updated; available to all team members; and ready to use when you least expect it, including after business hours and on weekends.